Neutral Tones
By Thomas Hardy
Speaker is remembering the time him and his girlfriend parted - standing by a pond in winter. Nature is used as a motif for sadness and death.
“And the sun was white, as though chidden of God’”
Colour white is symbolic of death and surrender. The sun has been drained of red, fiery passion, and is now bleak, mirroring the fall of their relationship. The sun being white may also be personifying the sun’s shock as it watches the demise of their love.
Similie “as though chidden of God” adds to the negative tone of how the sun is feeling, mirroring the speaker’s pain.
Religious imagery is emblematic of the speaker’s belief that God disapproves of the lady’s decision to end the relationship, and he feels as though she has torn apart something that was fateful and divinely ordained.
“And a few leaves lay on the starving sod; They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.”
Colour imagery of “ash” and “grey” demonstrate how metaphorically, all the life has been sucked out of nature, reflecting the speaker’s feelings of sorrow and being devoid of happiness now that his lover has left him. Also relates to the title of the poem.
Polysyndeton demonstrates how the speaker vividly remembers every detail of the day they parted, like he is reliving it, showing his inability to move on from the separation.
“The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing / Alive enough to have strength to die”
A smile should indicate joy, yet it doesn’t here, illustrating how the relationship didn’t bring her happiness anymore. The mouth also symbolises intimacy and communication, yet both have been lost in the relationship.
The superlative “deadest” implies that there are other signs of death in her and the relationship. The reference to death also shows the finality in the separation. The smile is dead, conveying to the speaker and the reader how the relationship has no possibility of being rekindled, and no opportunity for the joy to return. Symbolises an endless darkness without her for the speaker.
Oxymoron of “alive” and “dead” indicate the speaker’s inability to distinguish between life and death, as they both feel the same to him. Exemplifies the deep extent of his sorrow and the fact he believes it to be eternal.