Neutral Tones Essay Questions

What is Hardy's treatment of neutrality in the poem?

The title "Neutral Tones" refers to both the poem's imagery and its mood or general atmosphere. These two overlap; Hardy uses details about the surrounding environment to reveal the speaker's internal state. The dreariness of the winter setting is seen in the white sunlight, the gray ash leaves, and the depleted soil. This represents the death of the relationship between the speaker and his ex-partner. However, this neutrality is also a facade: though the speaker insists upon a neutral passivity, the experience of the break-up has in fact left him in a state of bitter anger. Thus neutrality serves as both a reflection and a foil in the poem: it represents a bleak world in which love deceives and harms, and it also contrasts the speaker's bitter anger.

What is the significance of the white sunlight in the poem?

In "Neutral Tones," Hardy writes that "the sun was white, as though chidden of God." Compared to the way that sunlight is normally described in terms of yellow-gold hues, the white winter sun represents weakness and decay. It is not performing its function as a life-giving source. White is an achromatic hue that the eye perceives when all visible light in the spectrum reflects off an object. White light combines all colors in the color spectrum, which in some circumstances might symbolize a sense of balance and divine purity. But in this case, God rebukes and curses the white sunlight. This helps create the sense of bitter disillusionment at work in the poem.

What is polysyndeton and how is it used in the poem?

Polysyndeton is a literary device in which conjunctions—most often “and” or “but”—are repeated in close succession even when normal rules of grammar do not require it. It is most often found in poetry and drama, though it can also appear in works of prose to a lesser extent. Polysyndeton takes advantage of the power of repetition to emphasize what is being said in the text. This purposeful repetition is therefore used to enhance meaning and deepen the power of the message being conveyed. It also slows down the rhythm of the lines.

Polysyndeton appears throughout "Neutral Tones," helping to emphasize the speaker's insisted-upon neutrality and later his bitter notions about the immorality of love. For example, the second and third lines in the first stanza read, "And the sun was white, as though chidden of God, / And a few leaves lay on the starving sod." The repetition of "and" helps build the dreary atmosphere. In the final stanza, "and" is repeated to intensify the bitter tone of the lesson which the speaker has learned. The breakup being described here is more than merely the end of a relationship; it is the end of the speaker’s innocent conception of love.