Tone (literature)
In literature, tone refers to the attitude or feelings that a speaker or narrator conveys towards the subject, characters, or plot through their choice of language. This tone is established using various literary elements, including word choice, sentence structure, and figures of speech. A literary work can express multiple tones simultaneously, allowing for complex emotional landscapes; for instance, it can have an authoritative tone while also being humorous. Understanding tone is crucial, as it influences how readers interpret the characters and themes, and it enhances the overall mood of the narrative.
Tone can shift throughout a work and can reveal a character's development or emotional state. It is distinct from mood, which refers to the overall atmosphere of the piece; rather, tone reflects the narrator's or character's specific attitudes. In poetry, tone is conveyed through stylistic choices such as meter, rhyme, and form, paralleling how tone in music works. By recognizing tone, readers can deepen their comprehension of a literary work and appreciate the nuanced emotions and ideas being presented.
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Tone (literature)
In literature, tone refers to the speaker’s or narrator’s feelings toward the subject matter, characters, or plot of the story as expressed through the language used. Tone is established through elements including word choice, sentence structure, and figures of speech. Overall, the tone of a literary work is an attitude the author sets for his character or narrator through the act of storytelling itself, and its success relies on the reader’s ability to share and understand the attitude being conveyed. Traditionally, literary works can often convey more than one tone at a time; for example, a work can express a tone of authority while at the same time being humorous.
Background
Tone can be studied by examining contextual clues and elements of the work in question. For example, tone can change the meaning of a phrase like “You are a big help.” On the one hand, this phrase can be very complimentary, and a writer may demonstrate that tone by highlighting a character’s gratitude when making the statement. On the other hand, the phrase “You’re a big help” could also take on a tone of sarcasm, with the author describing a character’s rolling of the eyes or disdain for another character while the phrase is being said.
The tone of a literary work can be many things—formal or informal, serious or humorous, ironic or earnest, positive or negative, and so on. However, the way the tone is depicted by an author supports the other literary elements that an author might try to convey, such as the overall theme or central idea of a story. To better understand tone as a literary element, it is best to understand how tone can be used in our everyday lives and conversations. For example, if a mother announces to a child that she is planning a trip to the beach, the child’s response may be “That’s awesome!” The exclamation point at the end of the child’s statement would likely indicate to the reader that the child’s response exhibited a tone of excitement. However, if an author wrote the child’s response as “‘That’s awesome . . .’ Cindy said as she rolled her eyes,” the reader is likely to understand the child is not cheerful but unhappy about the beach trip, signaling a sense of sarcasm.
Overview
The tone of a literary work sets the stage for how a reader will interact with the story and affects how the reader feels about the ideas and emotions expressed throughout the work. Through tone, an author is able to demonstrate the narrator’s personality and help the reader better understand what the character is facing while contributing to the work’s overall theme and mood. However, tone and mood are not the same and have at times been confused for one another. While mood is the general atmosphere of a work, tone is the speaker’s or narrator’s attitude toward a particular topic or subject and contributes to the overall mood—not the other way around. Writers can convey tone through diction, word choice, grammar, sensory imagery, syntax and figurative language, and the tone can change throughout a literary work and can be helpful in understanding or revealing a character’s evolution through the plot of a literary work.
Additionally, in poetry, tone can be expressed differently than other forms of literature, although the tone still supports the overall theme and mood in poetry as with any other literary work. However, in poetry, tone can be expressed through stylistic elements of the piece, including, but not limited to, meter, rhyme, and choice of poetic form. In a sense, the tone that is found in poetry is similar to the tone found in music—accentuated by the sound as much as by the content.
Bibliography
Bao, Zhiming. The Structure of Tone. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999. Print.
Booth, Alison and Kelly J. Mays, eds. “Theme and Tone.” Norton Introduction to Literature, 10th ed. New York: Norton, 2010. Print.
Carnie, Andrew. Modern Syntax. New York: Cambridge UP, 2011. Print.
Parker, Robert Dale. How to Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2014. Print.
Stockwell, Peter. Texture—A Cognitive Aesthetics of Reading. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.
Stockwell, Peter, and Sara Whiteley. The Cambridge Handbook of Stylistics. New York: Cambridge UP, 2014. Print.
Wilson, Deirdre, and Dan Sperber. Meaning and Relevance. New York: Cambridge UP, 2012. Print.
Yip, Moira. Tone. New York: Cambridge UP, 2002. Print.