here is a top student essay for love and relationships poetry winter swans versus neutral tones so as always let's begin by looking at the question now the question for comparing the two poems will also will always go as follows compare how The Poets present and then you're going to be given the certain theme and it's going to be quite broad it's going to be quite obvious something to do with love for love and relation ships romantic feelings is quite an obvious choice in Winter swans and one other poem of your choice so you'll be given a poem and then you have to try and compare it to something that's normally prepared before with another poem so you can see I went straight into it went into my introduction and I said in the poems winter swans and neutral tones note how I'm using these quotation marks when I'm talking about them both poems explore unhappiness as an obstacle in romantic relationships so you can see how that's my first point that I've made there so both poems explore unhappiness as an obstacle in romantic relationships so that is1 sorry and then I put yet either through continue either through continuing in monotonous depression or taking little steps of resolution so that's my second point there and what's really good about having points like these is because you have your first point which talks about something in the beginning something initial and obvious like the theme them both being unhappy and then the second point is talking about the ending so not only have you got two really strong points of one of similarity one of difference but you're also ensuring that you're looking at the whole poem looking at the beginning and the end so you're going through this in many different ways um um and it's an easy way to talk about uh the relationship to either say how in one of the poems there was a very depressing end whereas the other poem there's some hope there's a sense of resolution and that's all you have to do for your introduction just introduce your similarity and your difference okay let's go into the first paragraph now in both winter swans and neutral tones both poets so before I go any further you can see how I'm clearly using the word both a lot perhaps a little bit too much in this but when you are communicating that this is a comparative essay you need to use words like that so both poets utilize and we've got a method here so let's use the highlighter yellow for methods now so they utilize pathetic fallacy and season to present the unhappy nature of the relationship so yellow will be themes and we can say green is going to be the purpose so to present unhappy nature of the relationship so then we then focus on winter swans so in Winter swans pathetic fallacy strikes the reader early in the title so we're talking about the title there method similarly to Hardy which is the poet referencing Winter's day early on in the poem so that's another method there of Winter's day sorry that's supposed to be yellow so you can see how within this sentence we've already made a comparison it being mentioned in the title in one of the poems and Winter's day in the other poem The Joint use of the season of winter shares harsh cold and unforgiving connotations so this is the part where you can prepare things you can think of words that are really high level to discuss and the connotations of it so what are the we here we're really just explaining the purpose of the method what does the season of winter bring it brings a sense of harsh cold reality unforgiving and that is supposed to highlight the state of the relationship furthermore words like furthermore are really good in any English literature essay the idea that winter is the final season possibly hints at the idea of it being the final stage in their relationship it's always important to say possibly because we don't know exactly what the poet was thinking so it's good that we're not suggesting it we're being open to different interpretations and you can see that we're still talking about this concept of winter but in a different way so winter can be now viewed as the final stage of the relationship so you can see how in just this section here we've discussed a lot about the season the pathetic fallacy what the purpose of it is how it's been used in both the poems and how firstly it can on on the first instance you can think of it as cold and unforgiving but it could have deeper meaning of it being the final stage of the relationships okay moving forward and note how this paragraph what I did and how I would structure my essays would be one paragraph for my first point that I mentioned in an introduction and another paragraph for the second point and therefore within the paragraphs you can embed loads of different methods loads of different quotes So it's more cumulative evidence evidence that's adding up rather than you just having one paragraph per quote so in this first paragraph it's going to be all of the evidence that highlights how both poems explore unhappiness as an obstacle in romantic relationships okay moving on in Winter swans the continued use of pathetic fallacy can be seen through the clouds had given their all so we now have another method although here personification is used to characterize the weather and lay blame to it as if it had intentionally attacked them so just explaining the method here what what the impact is so note how my structure is I discuss I pick out a quote and then I look at the impact of the quote and then I go further into um a deeper sense of what's happening so the meaning as I then say this tone of bitterness relented from this and the introduction of blame as an obstacle within the poem is the poet conveying the problematic relationship struggles and how blame like clouds or how like clouds unnecessary blame was shifted sorry this was done in exam condition so I need to clearly tidy up the grammar here so problematic relationship struggles so yeah hopefully you can see that my structure I'm not too strict with the Peter or a p paragraph I just have the quote I have the initial impact and then I have the deeper meaning of what what does this tell the what does this make the reader feel it's this tone of bitterness um and this idea of blame within the relationship okay later in the poem the soil is personified so here's another method and you can see how again I'm going through this chronologically which makes it feel very nice for the examiner to understand so the soil is personified as drowning the water logged Earth gulping for breath now I should have used singular quotation marks here because it's an embedded Clause so make sure you do that which creates a sense of it being overwhelmed filled to the bursting Point again shears uses natural imagery to parallel and convey the dire relationship struggles okay using words like again also highlights your point is being proved in neutral tone so we kind of have this constant flipping to and fro back to the different poems so in neutral tones Thomas Hardy shares this Outlook so shares this Outlook that's another similar phrase to use as even the sun was white the Sun connotes a sense of warmth and fun which hardy has cleverly stripped through the decolorization of the son to White something Bland empty and lifeless okay so really think about how the poets have really gotten rid of this sense of this emptiness now if you're wondering where I got this essay plan and all of these ideas and quotes from I do actually have videos which contain my essay plans that I memorized and then this is just the full essay the essay plan come true almost so if you want to look how I got the quotes and things you can go on that video with my essay plant in it okay moving on to the next part now the next portion S I think it's been cut off a little bit in the sense that all the leaves were in the beginning which Remains the Same later as grayish leaves sorry it's been a bit cut off so I don't know which where that ends but let's just continue so we're talking about the imagery of the leaves which remain leaves so it's a constant repetition of leaves and gray leaves so the gray and irresp colors align with the title neutral okay void of character and love so we talked about title earlier in the other poem now we're talking about the title here throughout the progression of neutral tones the mere development of the change in word structure from were gray to grayish leaves which on the surface demonstrates the irretrievable sense of the relationship but could also highlight how they almost fiddle and play around with their words which come to the same conclusion so hopefully you know what what I mean there when I'm saying that the the end is is uh finite there's the the relationship has ended and they're really trying to try and grasp that straws trying to make something of it but they're reaching the same conclusion they almost fiddle and play around with their words which come to the same conclusion that the speech that the speaker never reaches nonetheless that their relationship is truly irretrievable okay so that is my first paragraph talking about the unhappy relationship and how nature is used to portray that that's the similarity the next paragraph is looking at the difference so the difference was how either they continue in the monotonous depression or take little steps of resolution so let's look each individual poem either expresses a resolution through small steps or a continuation of sorrow and misery so that's how I started that paragraph in Winter swans progression can be seen through the earlier negative natural imagery contrasted to the more resolving figurative language so the natural imagery contrasted to the more so a couple of methods used here firstly obviously on the face of it the contrast between the natural imagery to the figurative language there's contrast in the poem what could that be saying well the natural imagery is quite real and tangible um whereas the figurative language is more dreamlike and it's and it suggests that that there is hope there is um something that can be ignited from the mundane boringness okay so this can be seen through the simile towards the end of the poem where it says like boats writing in rough weather which suggests that admidst the turbulence the boat could seek stability eventually which parallels to their relationship eventually connect connecting and healing correcting sorry and healing so we use this simil and we further analyzed it saying how it was really nice to say the turbulence the boat could seek stability and this parallels their relationship which despite the initial troubles will eventually seek refuge and healing this turning point is also important to say turning point this Turning Point into commitment flows smoothly onto the final stanza which adopts the coulet form so here we're talking about structure and form we haven't really spoken too much about that so that's why I wanted to add that in there so it adopts the coulet form known for its petren and romantic expectations so that's going a step further that's definitely Beyond grade n it's talking about how um the petar and Sonet structure was intended for romantic ideas and connotations and love and therefore by adopting that structure it provides a little bit of sense of hope of there being romantic love and you know progression and it hints at the raise of Hope and dissol dissolution of the differences additionally so words like additionally amazing keep using them because they're adding to your point the portrayal of water and swans May reveal how they found a level state that seems almost impossible in a cyclicality of neutral tones see that was a really nice way of connecting those two poems rather than saying in this poem in that poem so this level state that seems impossible in the cyclicality of neutral tones because they're just in neutral tones they're going over and over the problem there's no sense of resolution or people moving on revered through the theme of death prevalent by a a semantic field of die deadest thing so there's this portrayal of the sense of finality here in um neutral tones and so that semantic field of death suggests the end of the relationship there's no resolution this prevents any shred of Hope through a the Grievous comparison further exemplifying the unattainability of the relationship okay and then I've just got my conclusion here let's look at this turbulent relationships are explored through both poems so it's kind of a rephrase of the um introduction here but we're going to look into a little bit deeper and both initially align with the title something depressing and empty okay so that's another it's another similarity that hasn't exactly been spelled out for us in the introduction but it's something that you've just connected and you wanted to mention it in the conclusion so the examiner isn't just rereading your entire script you're kind of going even further however in Winter swans shears provides the reader hope through the development into the repairing and reparation and sorry must be cut off there but unfortunately the reader is unable to receive and retrieve the same level of satisfaction from Hardy as it seems the morning of the relationship is both unending and irreparable so that is how I structured that and I received 24 out of 24 marks of course there was numerous grammar mistakes and just wording errors but you can see that that is a level that you want to be aiming at so feel free to use this Resource as you please and I should be able to get this up on my website as well which you can find by clicking on the N GCC page thank you so much for watching and if you found it helpful drop a like also make sure to um watch the live streams that will be coming out so there'll be live streams just on the night before your gcsc exams and they should be really helpful for you guys thank you so much for watching and see you soon