Neutral Tones Literary Elements

The first-person speaker reflects on the end of a relationship and his subsequent views on love.

The poem's rhyme scheme is ABBA, and it is written in an inconsistent meter.

Metaphors
-"The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing / Alive enough to have strength to die" (Lines 9-10): The smile on the ex-lover's mouth is compared to the process of death.

Similes
-"And the sun was white, as though chidden of God" (Line 2): The whiteness of the sunlight is compared to something capable of God's disapproval.
-"Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove / Over tedious riddles of years ago" (Lines 5-6): The ex-partner's eyes moving over the speaker's face are compared to eyes that seek out the answers to old riddles that are no longer relevant.
-"And a grin of bitterness swept thereby / Like an ominous bird a-wing" (Lines 11-12): The bitter grin on the ex-lover's face is compared to a flying bird that brings bad omens.

Alliteration
-"And a few leaves lay on the starving sod" (Line 3): The /s/ repeats.
-"And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me" (Line 14): The /r/ repeats.

Assonance
-"...grin of bitterness..." (Line 11): The short /i/ sound repeats.

The ex-lover's smile is described as being "the deadest thing / alive enough," and therefore shows the active process of the dying relationship.

God curses the sunlight despite the sun being considered a life-giving source.

The speaker insists upon neutrality and passivity despite the bitter anger he feels.

The ABBA rhyme scheme is reminiscent of the first octave of Petrarchan sonnets, which deal with love.

Dramatic Monologue

The poem is set in the speaker's memory of a winter day in the countryside as he and an ex-partner terminate their relationship.

Reflective, Passive, Bitter

The protagonist is the speaker and the antagonist is his suffering and gloomy outlook on love as a result of ending a relationship.

The major conflict is the way in which a break-up wounds the speaker's wellbeing and disenchants his outlook on love.

The climax occurs in the last stanza when the speaker reveals the bitter anger brewing beneath his supposed neutrality.

The bleak setting at the beginning of the poem foreshadows the melancholic subject matter.

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The poem alludes to a God capable of anger and abandonment.

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The line "The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing" is an example of hyperbole because the ex-lover was still alive at the time of this memory, and so her mouth is actually composed of living tissue.

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