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Tone

Definition:

Picture
Tone: The author's attitude, stated or implied, toward the subject or audience.




Some words to describe these attitudes include:
    - Serious
    - Sympathetic
    - Indignant
    - Whimsical
    - Joyous
    - Mocking
    - Cynical
    - Ironic


Picture
An author's tone can be revealed  through choice of words and details.

Tone should not be confused with mood.

        - Mood: The climate of feeling within a literary work
    - For example: An author may create a mood of quietude around a subject such as love, but treat the subject with an ironic tone.
Picture

Example:

Picture
The following is a sketch by Kay Boyle written in response to a newspaper headline which read: "Deserted Wife Tells Court of Hardships Endured on Pittance of $1,000 a Month." As you read it, decide how the author feels about the subject.

        "I'm a poor woman now," said Mrs. Liggett, taking the stand with her lipstick putting in a word for itself every now and then. "I can't entertain any more the way I used to, I can't have a box at the opera.  I can't go to a play every week the way I once did.  I can't pay two hundred dollars for a dress.  I can't even go to church," said Mrs. Liggett.  "I can't afford to pay for a sitting as I've always done."



"Birthday," by M.T. Buckley

Picture
  Geronimo.
I jumped into the world.
No parachute. Bootless,
falling into enemy territory
into the night (had my eyes closed)
Didn't take them long to find me.
These suicide missions are all the same.
Name? not yet. Unit? 82nd Newborn, ha ha.
Slapped me around a bit
but I didn't talk.
Made sure I wouldn't escape.
Sentenced me to life. I guess I deserved it.


Finding Tone

•  Geronimo:
        -A famous Apache chief who led courageous but hopeless    
        campaigns against the whites in 1885 and 1886, lives in language
        today.
        - Paratroopers in World War II shouted the name to fires their
        spirits as they jumped to their fate. 
        - The custom is still followed.
Comparison: Fight of your life

•         Ll 1-5: WWII reference, but scarier because the speaker is even more vulnerable without the safety of a parachute, eyesight, or even boots.
•         Ll 6-7: He’s caught and captured, just like every baby who is born.
•         Ll 8-9: Reference to the air force (referring to the jump out of the plane)
•         Ll 10-12: POW references being compared to slapping a baby to make sure they’re breathing.
•         Ll 13: He’ll live
For clues to the tone of the selection, look at its words and details
        •By themselves, what tone do phrases have?
         –Enemy Territory
        –Suicide Mission
        –Slapped me around a bit
Do you feel that the speaker's overall tone is joking or serious?

"My Mother, Who Came from China, Where She Never Saw Snow," by Laureen Mar

Picture
In the huge, rectangular room, the ceiling
A machinery of pipes and fluorescent lights,
ten rows of women hunch over machines,
their knees pressing against pedals
and hands pushing the shiny fabric thick as tongues
through metal and thread.
My mother bends her head to one
        of these machines.
Her hair is coarse and wiry, black as burnt scrub.
She wears glasses to shield her intense eyes.
A cone of orange thread spins. Around her,
Talk flutters harshly in Toisan wah.
Chemical stings. She pushes cloth
through a pounding needle, under,
        around, and out,
breaks  thread with a snap
        against fingerbone, tooth.
Sleeve after sleeve, sleeve.
It is easy. The same piece.
For eight or nine hours, sixteen bundles maybe,
250 sleeves to ski coats, all the same.
It is easy, only once she's run the needle through her hand.
She earns money
by each piece, on a good day,
thirty dollars. Twenty-four years.
It is frightening how fast she works.
She and the women who were taught sewing
terms in English as Second Language.
Dull thunder passes through their fingers.


Irony: A contrast between what appears to be and what is

Picture
Three Types:
1. Verbal Irony:
  words imply the opposite of what they really mean
2. Situational:  A state of affairs presented that is the opposite of what is expected
3. Dramatic Irony: This occurs in fiction or drama when the audience/reader knows more than a character or characters do.


Terms to know:

Picture
Tone
Mood
Verbal Irony
Situational Irony
Dramatic Irony

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