The lure of "Neutral Tones" by Thomas Hardy, is in its subtle familiarity. Although the poem describes the breaking off of a relationship, the reader quickly finds the speaker is neither fondly nor bitterly recalling the event. By avoiding every sensory image except for sight, abstaining from definition, and coloring in neither bright nor dark tones, the author purposefully distances the reader from the event. The poem's appeal lies not in its allusion to lost love, but in the passing of pain with time. This pale scene reveals the aging of painful memories that occurs but each of us so often forgets.
The first clue that the poem conveys something more than a painful memory is in the title. "Neutral Tones" immediately encourages the reader to postpone any positive or negative inferences until the author makes his meaning clear. In a sense we are left out rather then taken in. This is the first of many distancing devices.
To describe the scene without placing the reader in it, the author creates images using the sense most commonly used from a distance: sight. Not only does the author avoid contact with the other senses, he methodically insures this isolation. We see a sun without warmth: "And the sun was white, as though chidden of God" (line 2). He portrays words as costly and attributes them with physical rather than acoustical characteristics: "And some words played between us to and fro / On which lost the more by our love" (7-8). While smells are simply avoided, the dearth of tastes is re-enforced: "And a few leaves lay on the starving sod;" (3). Using images appealing only to sight helps to produce this view from the outside looking in.
Similarly, the poem's lack of definition allows the reader to see this painful memory as similar to a personal experience without demanding the recollection of details better forgotten. Several things are purposely unclear: whether the speaker is male or female, which person ended the relationship, and who or if anyone was at fault. This comfortable obscurity encourages the reader to identify with the speaker, and assures that the similarity is tenuous at best. Instead of by pushing the reader out, the distance here is created by pulling the reader in, but only to the point of familiarity.
It is at this point of subtle recognition that the "Neutral Tones" come into play. Perhaps the most obvious distinction of the poem is its total lack of color. Like a black and white photograph, the "grayish leaves" and "white" sun yield much the same effect as the references to death and the mention of time gone by: "Since then" (13). They all create distance in time. Drained of its color, this poem is a memory on the edge of death, the expectation of which is a relief to its owner.
Disrobing, defusing and discharging painful memories is the whole point of the poem. Sometimes we ardently avoid memories because we remember the memories were painful before––not because they are painful now. Hardy demonstrates pain's aging is pleasant, its future is bright. Separated by comforting time, drawn by subtle familiarity and contending with a tempting perspective, the reader is encouraged to explore old wounds. The realization that pain subsides with time is not always an easy one––pain is often easier to ignore than to reflect on.