Neutral Tone - Thomas Hardy Flashcards
Neutral Tone
This poem brings out the message that love is a negative experience and that the natural world around Hardy is indifferent to his suffering.
General Context
- Hardy questioned the traditional Christian view of God and was an agnostic. This is interesting as the poem mentioned God but he was unsure about God’s existence.
- Hardy often had unhappy and complicated relationships with his wives and the poem is about how men and women have difficult relationship.
‘we stood by a pond that winter day’
L - past tense
It suggests that the relationship has ended.
L - symbolism
The fact that the poem is set in winter symbolises that the two lovers have become emotionally cold. Their love is dying just like the nature is dying in winter.
‘few leaves’
‘starving sod’
‘ash’
L - semantic field of death or dying
It describes the death throes of the relationship.
‘eyes that rove over tedious riddles’
L - noun
Implies that they did not understand each other.
‘the smile on your mouth was the deadest thing’
L - metaphor
L - superlative adjective
The traditional association of smile is subverted, implying their love is dead and there is no way that it will be reignited.
‘alive enough to have strength to die’
L - oxymoronic image
suggests that it may be a false smile. Her facial expression shows her coldness towards him.
‘a grin of bitterness swept thereby like an ominous bird a-wing’
L - simile
It represents that she is about to confirm that she no longer loves him.
‘keen lessons that love deceives’
L - adjective
L - plural noun
The speaker have multiple painful emotional experiences that have taught him lessons that :
I -
1. love is deceitful as lovers lie.
2. when you are in love, you may deceive yourself.
‘have shaped to me your face’
The speaker associates her and her face with love is deceitful.
This suggests their breakup has a significant impact on his life and has made the speaker cynical and distrustful in relationships.
‘your face, and the God curst sun, and a tree’
L - monosyllabic words
The speaker believes that God and the natural world oppose their relationship.
L - caesura
Emphasises how vividly he still remembers the moment by focusing the reader’s attention on the visual images.
Written as a monologue
The speaker chooses to address a poem to his former lover after all this time shows that he has not been able to move on emotionally.
Regular stanzas with indented last lines
The indented final lines encapsulate the negative mood of the poem but the regular structure shows how he is trying to impose control on his emotions.
Cyclical Structure
Begins and ends the poem with ‘pond’ suggests that he has not move on emotionally.
Reader Response
- speaker is pessimistic
