Neutral Tones By Thomas Hardy Essay

"Like an ominous bird a-wing..."(12) foretells her leaving him. He is seeing in her forced grin an omen of bad luck. Many people see owls as an omen of death if they hoot outside their window for seven nights in a row. It is in this sense that the poet speaks of her dead smile.

Poems consist of a variation of different techniques in order to convey a message or idea to readers. Wilfred Owen, Thomas Hardy, Adrienne Rich, Bruce Dawe and Robert Browning are great poets who explore these issues, conveying their emotions, which influences a perception of an issue. In each of their poems they express the hidden message of hope, along with their main message. They use similar techniques to express their ideas, which illustrates their purpose to the reader.

Poetry allows for individuals to express themselves creatively through language and emotion. Kelly J. Mays describes in The Norton Introduction to Literature, that poetry is patterned arrangements of language to generate “rhythm” and thereby expressing and evoking specific “emotions” or “feelings” (847). When viewing “I wondered lonely as a cloud” by William Wordsworth and “Divorce” by Billy Collins it is plain to see that both writers were introducing their readers to their emotional status of the settings, theme and tone of their writings. Although different in the feelings and emotions, both authors inflict an emotional arousal to the reader.

To begin with, the use of color in both the poem and the novel has a deeper meaning than just what colors turn into other colors. In the poem, the colors are more than just the different color cycle plants go through. The changing of colors during season changing also means the passing of life and how everyone's growing up through the different stages of winter, spring, summer, and autumn. In autumn one is a baby, in the winter one is six or seven in the spring one is twelve or thirteen, in the summer one is seventeen or eighteen, and by the fall comes around one is now an adult ready to live on their own. For example, “Nature's first green is gold” (Frost 1); When one is

To start off with, the two speakers both have incredibly negative and destructive ways of viewing the world. The speaker of Neutral Tones views the world as though it is devoid of life and glee. He makes references throughout the poem that suggest this. “And the sun was white, as though chidden of God” (2) is a perfect instance of how the speaker in Neutral Tones views the world. The sun is usually the source of all light and warmth in the world. The speaker does not see the sun in this way. Since he sees the

“Sunshine seemed like gold,” (line 4) and “Whole damn world’s turned cold,” (line 5). The poet

Inner conflicts often dictate what the narrator wants, but cannot have, which creates the overall attitude of the poem. The narrator struggles to look at this woman because his "eyes take no delight to range/ about the gleam which on your face do grow" (3-4). He is not able to look at her even though she is beautiful due to the heartbreak that she left him with. This attitude carries on throughout the poem where he acknowledges her beauty but is unwilling to be hurt by her again. He is in agony from the emotions that she inflicts, and the readers see his mental process of working through it as he comes to the conclusion that he will "wink or else hold down my head" because it is her eyes that cause his "bale" (14-15). His attitude changes from being at war with his inner feelings to being accepted to the fact that if he looks at her he will be in danger of being hurt a second time. The irony being applied shows how his conflicted attitude is made clear by acknowledging that he will not give in to his desire despite what his repressed emotions are saying. Irony can be highly influential in discovering the narrator's hidden agenda and purposes, and the words chosen to reveal these purposes have an impact on the overall attitude of a piece of

Imagery is used throughout the poem to emphasize the finite time humans have on the earth, and how every second should be appreciated. Lines two and three are the speaker’s first use of imagery. Diction in line two illustrates the speaker’s recognition of the phenomena, which is snow in October. The phrase “But this morning” (line 2) highlights that the meaning is not a mundane morning. Most people would be agitated that winter came early, but the speaker seems to be grateful. Furthermore, the speaker describes the snow in a pleasant tone, seen in this line “pale muslin/ stretched across the grass” (line 2-3). This emphasizes that the speaker appricates the early

Hardy begins to forget how she was during the time they were estranged but before, “as at first when our day was fair” when they were in love. Hardy assures himself with “yes, as I knew you then.” Although the reader might believe this would make it harder for Hardy to move on, it could possibly do the opposite- Hardy can continue his life without having regrets, on how their relationship was before she died. Hardy visualises her in an “air-blue gown!” this is a romantic expression communicating how perfect she seemed to be. To convey how his loved one was everything to him, Auden uses a contrast in language in the third stanza, “My North, my South, my East and West” demonstrates how Auden was directionless once he died, how he was the entire world to him; all the coordinates. Auden wanted everyone to share his grief, “Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone” “let the mourners come” as a response to death. I believe he wanted to inflict his pain on everyone else after the loss of a loved one, because it's extremely painful to see others happy; he wants others to share his grief. Auden seen his loved one so perfect, he wished to broadcast it to the world “Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves” “let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead.” Because of the loss of his partner, Auden wishes to erase romance. Romance is associated

In fact, in several of his poems “Hardy emphasizes instead the tragic lateness of all knowledge, so that the wisdom won through retrospection is less often a gift than a torment” (Miller). In doing so, Hardy indirectly warns his readers of the effects of regret by expressing his emotions about the time he himself lost. This idea of lost time correlates to Hardy’s relationship with his first wife, Emma. Hardy was rather estranged from his first wife because they did not have similar views on religion. Hardy heavily critiqued Victorian religion in his works of literature, such as in Jude the Obscure, while his wife confined to it. This caused them to be separated for a few years up until Emma’s death in 1912. Although they were distanced for several years prior to her death, her sudden death heavily influenced Hardy because he regretted not loving her properly. Hardy began to write poems of guilt and despair shortly after her death, producing his collection of poems The Poems of 1912-13. Critics claim this collection of poetry is what solidified Hardy’s title of a truly great

This stanza directly follows the intensity of the storm -- no time is wasted as one breathtaking detail of nature is exchanged for another of completely different kind. Here the eerie

It becomes his callousness and stubbornness to enter the realm of nature and endowed to him by the sense of being lonely and deprived. The recognition of this sense of loneliness and dispossession results in his mind being at a loss to emotional response. In this mind set he gives way to the benumbing mood all around. The whole nature is showing a moodic deceleration because of the snow and the night. In direct contrast to its nature, this

The poet uses a lot of emotive language in this poem to try and make

Today’s critics, with the advantage of hindsight, generally agree that Hardy was an apt novelist. Karen Swallow Prior asserts that Hardy’s Tess challenged Victorian ideals, and that Hardy was “a man ahead of his time.” Considering the conservative time in which Hardy lived, it was not difficult to be avant-garde. Hardy lived during the England’s Victorian period, “a time of great psychological repression” (Sousa 2). The Victorians maintained extremely hidebound ideas about most matters, but they were

It is never easy to fill a void especially the void that can be created from losing a loved one. Sometimes it can be a lost battle and the person trying to fill the void will be left behind. Thomas Hardy explores the thoughts and feeling of the person being left behind. Hardy knowing loss so well with the death of his first wife is able to put his feet in the shoes of his newly bethorved. The unknown woman in the poem has lost her soldier to the brutality of war and lost him to his first love. The woman standing over the graves has been left behind in life and when her time is to come she will be left behind in death.