Neutral Tones Essay
Compare and Contrast ‘Neutral Tones’ by Thomas Hardy and ‘Absence’ by Elizabeth Jennings.
In both poems Thomas Hardy and Elizabeth Jennings they have lost a person they were close to. There are some similarities in their feeling but there responses are different. Neither poets can forget the experience and are reminiscing on the situation. They are both going back to the place where they were with the people they loved. However in ‘Absence’ she has actually gone to the place they were together and in ‘Neutral Tones’ he is remembering the time they where together.
“Neutral Tones” comes across as very negative. His language suggests that he has grown bitter towards love. He uses pessimistic words such as ‘grey’, ‘tedious’, ‘deadest’, ‘bitterness’, ‘ominous’ and ‘wrings’. It also suggests he is quite angry when he describes the sun …show more content…
He says ‘since then keen lessons that love deceives’ showing he has already learnt the lesson from it. He is clear about what has happened to him and at the time of the break up probably felt the same as the person in ‘Absence’ as he says ‘over tedious riddles of years ago’ indicating that he used to try and reason with the situation but it became ‘tedious’.
However in ‘Absence’ she is trying to rationalise the situation but is finding it hard to reason with the fact nothing else seems to be affected but her. She begins in the first stanza by saying ‘there was no sign that anything had ended’ as if she was expecting when she went back to where the two of them had been together everything would’ve been affected, which she feels doesn’t ‘instruct her to forget’, suggesting she doesn’t want to have to control the feeling of loss; she wants someone to instruct her to forget. She also describes the birds as ‘thoughtless’ as if she wanted them to sympathise with her. She describes her loss as ‘a savage force’ like the person was unfairly taken away from
In both poems Thomas Hardy and Elizabeth Jennings they have lost a person they were close to. There are some similarities in their feeling but there responses are different. Neither poets can forget the experience and are reminiscing on the situation. They are both going back to the place where they were with the people they loved. However in ‘Absence’ she has actually gone to the place they were together and in ‘Neutral Tones’ he is remembering the time they where together.
“Neutral Tones” comes across as very negative. His language suggests that he has grown bitter towards love. He uses pessimistic words such as ‘grey’, ‘tedious’, ‘deadest’, ‘bitterness’, ‘ominous’ and ‘wrings’. It also suggests he is quite angry when he describes the sun …show more content…
He says ‘since then keen lessons that love deceives’ showing he has already learnt the lesson from it. He is clear about what has happened to him and at the time of the break up probably felt the same as the person in ‘Absence’ as he says ‘over tedious riddles of years ago’ indicating that he used to try and reason with the situation but it became ‘tedious’.
However in ‘Absence’ she is trying to rationalise the situation but is finding it hard to reason with the fact nothing else seems to be affected but her. She begins in the first stanza by saying ‘there was no sign that anything had ended’ as if she was expecting when she went back to where the two of them had been together everything would’ve been affected, which she feels doesn’t ‘instruct her to forget’, suggesting she doesn’t want to have to control the feeling of loss; she wants someone to instruct her to forget. She also describes the birds as ‘thoughtless’ as if she wanted them to sympathise with her. She describes her loss as ‘a savage force’ like the person was unfairly taken away from