An overview of tone in literature with examples from James Baldwin, Martin Espada and popular culture.

1. Tone. ENGL 151L 1
Tone

2. Tone is the writer’s (or photographer’s)
attitude toward the topic
This colorful photo gives the feeling that writing is
meditative, peaceful, recreational, restful. Even easy! A
vacation activity!
This stark image on the other hand implies that
writing is intense, gritty, personal, arduous. Pretty
hard!
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3. Aren’t some scary movies scary right from the start?
Here the title design – color, size, font – as well as the
background set an ominous tone.
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4. Deadpool’s spoofy, irreverent attitude toward super
heroes shows in the body language.
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5. Here, the pastel colors, hazy focus, and visual style of the
title suggest a blend of romance and nostalgia.
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6. Many choices, starting with
the title and its design, create
the mood of a movie.
TONE TONE TONE
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7. Music and Tone
Music affects tone too. With so many epic films,
isn’t the sound track essential? What are your
favorite examples? Wonder Woman, Iron Man,
Black Panther, Fury Road? And going farther back
Star Wars, Rocky, Jaws, The Godfather. We hear a
few notes and feel it again – the power and mood
of the movie.
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8. Words and Tone
In conversation, people give some words more
emphasis than others, changing the tone and
often too the meaning.
Oh no, you didn’t (just drop and break my
phone)
Oh no you didn’t (ruin my birthday party,
somebody else did)
Oh no you didn’t (get me this new phone for my
birthday!!)
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9. A personal story: Tone transcends
language barriers
We can hear tone of voice even in a language we don’t
know. I was in Turkey once being hosted by the aunt of a
Turkish friend. I didn’t know much Turkish yet, and she
spoke little English. My first day there I got lost in the
outdoor market. When we found each other, Husneye let
out a stream of words. Her tone went from anxious to
ticked off to relieved. I felt pretty sure she said something
like – Where the heck were you?! Don’t wander off like that
again! If I lose you Fatma will kill me. Well, anyway I found
you, let’s go eat. I responded with a stream of English that
she seemed to understand exactly. We laughed, and in
laughter we were each multilingual.
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10. But pity the poor writer! They don’t have
design choices, music or even spoken
language with which to create tone.
All they have is the written word
True, a book’s cover sets a certain tone but writers don’t usually design their
covers (but you can bet they’re hoping they get a good graphic designer!)
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11. So how do writers get tone into their writing?
We’ll look here at two main ways:
1) Figurative language – Poetic comparisons
known as similes and metaphors.
2) Style choices, especially around specific
words and the order they’re in.
Descriptions of time and place are also central to
tone; we’ll cover those elements in Week 2.
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12. 1) Figurative language adds a ton to Tone
Figurative language Comment
From Of the Threads that Connect the Stars.
“I never saw stars. The sky in Brooklyn was a tide of smoke
rolling
over us
from the factory across the avenue.”
Hmm…Why such a long line and then that short one “over us”?
Smoke billowing from a factory blocks stars. It’s
oppressive and also, like the tides, cyclical. The
smoke rolls over the people the way water does over
sand. The tone fits that part of the poem nicely and
makes a satisfying contrast to the uplifting tone of
the last stanza.
From Sonny’s Blues, right after the older brother has
read of Sonny’s arrest: “A great block of ice got settled in my
belly and kept melting there slowly all day long, while I taught
my classes algebra. It was a special kind of ice. It kept melting,
sending trickles of ice water all up and down my veins, but it
never got less. Sometimes it hardened and seemed to expand
until I felt my guts were going to come spilling out or that I was
going to choke or scream.” (Baldwin 225-226)
That’s what it felt like to him. A shock so great it’s
physical. And it’s not one sudden shock. It’s his whole
morning, growing, getting worse. Spending so much
time on this comparison (an extended metaphor),
Baldwin creates a surrounding tone, like a bell jar we
are in with the narrator/main character as he deals.
From near the end. “He [the band leader, Creole] wanted
Sonny to leave the shoreline and strike out for the deep water.
He was Sonny’s witness that the deep water and drowning were
not the same thing. . . . He was waiting for Sonny to do the
things on the keys which would let Creole know that Sonny was
in the water.” (Baldwin 246)
The tone created by the swimming metaphor feels
almost joyful. Sonny is released, freed. Baldwin is
brilliant to sneak us into Creole’s point of view
because Creole, more than the older until now,
knows Sonny’s talent. He reveres him. If one feels the
tone, it’s a wonderful moment. 12

13.  The choice of words - Diction
• Casual to formal (or colloquial vs “standard” English)
• Concrete to abstract
• Usual to unusual (or conversational vs poetic)
 The order of the words - Syntax
• Expected to surprising
• Usual to unusual
 The types of sentences – Sentence Structure
• Short to long
• Simple, compound, complex
• Mainly the same to great variety
*Style is covered in more detail in a later ecture.
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2) Many Small Style Choices
Shape Tone

14. Example of style choices creating tone
in “Sonny’s Blues”
“I read about it in the paper, in the subway, on my way to work. I
read it, and I couldn't believe it, and I read it again.”
This is the first line of “Sonny’s Blues.” We don’t even know
what the “it” is yet but we can tell by the tone that it’s some
unwelcome shock. Can you sense too that it’s not a shock
about world events but rather something personal to the
narrator?
The repetition of “read it” 3x conveys his shock. Also, both
sentences are made of 3 short clauses. The syntax is almost
a record skipping or someone stuttering. Or a mind stopping
and starting and stopping on one horrible fact. Which we
don’t even know yet!
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15. Example of style choices creating tone in
“Of the Threads that Connect the Stars.”
“My father saw stars. My son sees stars. The earth rolls beneath
our feet. We lurch ahead, and one day we have walked this far.”
This is the last 2 lines and also the last stanza. Like Baldwin, Espada repeats words
and word order, “My father…” “My son....” He also uses 3 short sentences in a
row, like Baldwin’s 3 clauses, to create a serious tone. Almost processional. But
here the tone is uplifting. We see that verb roll again. First it was the tide of
smoke rolling over people. Now it is the earth that “rolls beneath [their] feet.” As
it should be. Time passes. Generations heal and “one day we have walked this
far.” Later in the semester we’ll talk about how beat and meter create tone (it’s a
whole science, ask MF Doom), but for now I’ll just note that double beat of “this
far.” Ta-dum. This type of beat in poetry is called a spondee – two stressed
syllables. A resounding ending. Imagine the line this way:
“We lurch ahead, and one day we have walked quite a long distance.”
Hmm. Not so strong. I also like how the “this” can refer to the poet, the son of the
father whose only stars were concussions, writing this tender, hopeful poem.
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16. Irony: A common Tone in Literature and Life
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Irony is all around us. It’s
when the words say the
opposite of the meaning,
usually on purpose but . . .

17. … sometimes accidentally
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18. Irony is saying the opposite
of what is meant
Three main types of irony
1. Understatement
2. Sarcasm
3. Hyperbole
4. Dramatic
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This photo of Americans waiting
on a food line during The Great
Depression of the 1930’s makes
an ironic statement.

19. 1. Understatement
“Tis but a scratch” says Monty Python’s ridiculously
tough black knight. Click here to view the scene.
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20. 2. Sarcasm – saying
the opposite of what’s meat
Have a nice da-ay
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21. 3. Hyperbole – Exaggerating to create
emphasis (used often in advertising)
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Wow you’re sofa is totally covered with cat hair!

22. Watch sharp Irony turn a crowd: Marc Anthony's oration
from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar"
When that the poor have cried, Caesar wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented [Ceasar] a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
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23. And Dramatic Irony
Dramatic irony is when the audience knows something a character doesn’t,
creating tension and, in comedy, humor. Examples past students sent:
• From Disney: Snow White doesn't know the old woman is the queen in
disguise or that the apple is poisoned. Little Mermaid’s Ariel doesn't know
Ursula is only using her to get to Triton. Eric doesn't know Ariel is a mermaid.
• In X-Men: First Class (the one with Fassbender & McAvoy) most of the
audience knows Charles & Erik end up lifelong enemies.
• Star Wars prequels: The audience knows Anakin will become Darth Vader.
• Flash: The audience knows Flash’s mentor Dr. Harrison Wells is not really
confined to that wheelchair and comes from the future.
• In The Dark Knight Rises, Selina / Catwoman leads Batman into Bane's trap,
only to discover too late that Batman is actually the millionaire Bruce Wayne,
which we haha knew all along. Ironic and dramatic.
If you think of a good example, please send it along – kgordon@Northampton.edu
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24. Recent Example of Dramatic Irony
Here’s a pretty brilliant example of dramatic irony you may have seen -- “Explaining the Pandemic to my
Past Self.” Think how this would be if the future self just told the past self about all that was going to happen
with the pandemic. Instead, she sets up a premise – I can’t tell you because of the butterfly effect. And
we’re off. The past self has no idea, and we the audience know all too much. It sort of puts us IN the piece.
We experience it in an interesting, more dramatic way. We don’t just watch/listen/read a great creative
work, anymore than we just look at and smell a well-made meal. We experience it. Tone is one key way
writers bring us in. Here is the link if the video does not launch.
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25. Questions to start a Response essay
once you’ve chosen a piece*
• How much is my response to the piece related to its tone?
• What 3 words describe the tone of this piece?
• Does the tone change? Where, how?
• What passage can I point to show the tone and tone shifts?
• Are there any unusual words? What specific words add to the tone?
(Discussion of one word or phrase could be a whole paragraph in your
essay. Look especially at verbs.)
• Does this lecture change my understanding of a piece? How?
• Is there any irony in the piece? What type(s)?
• What example of tone-shaping figurative language can I quote?
• Which passage really shows off the author’s style choices and how they
add to the tone?
• Do I hear the tone more if I read a passage out loud? (Try that on the
ending)
*Any piece assigned or offered as optional extra in weeks 1-3 will work.
Tone. ENGL 151L 25