High School Tone Words
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Dee Schulten Tone and Style 1 Understanding Tone Studying and describing tone require great alertness because your understanding will depend largely on your ability to make inferences from the work you are reading (sometimes this is called “reading between the lines”). Your analysis of tone is, in effect, your analysis of the author’s mind at work, and through this analysis you can become aware of the vitality of literaturethe creativity of the author’s mind as seen in his or her words. Reading a work of literature without perceiving its tone is like watching a speaker on television with the sound turned off; without tone you can guess at meaning but cannot understand it fully. Writing Themes about Literature, 5th ed. Using the acronym DIDLS helps students remember the basic elements of tone that they should consider when evaluating prose or poetry. Diction, images, details, language, and sentence structure all help to create the author’s or speaker’s attitude toward the subject and audience. DICTION: IMAGES: DETAILS: The important and individual words the author chooses to use. The word pictures created by groups of words. These images appeal to the senses. Often confused with images, these are more precisely facts and are notable not only for what is included but also for what is purposely omitted. LANGUAGE: This term describes the characteristics of the body of words used; terms such as slang, clinical, scholarly, and jargon denote language. SENTENCE STRUCTURE: Expressed in its most elemental form, this notes that short sentences are often emotional or assertive and that longer sentences move toward more reasonable or even scholarly intent. According to Language Awareness: Readings for College Writers, style is the individual manner in which a writer expresses his or her ideas. It is created by the author’s particular diction, syntax, and arrangement of ideas. Here’s a poem entitled “Style” by James Hayford: As the cold currents of the brook Render its sands and pebbles clear, Just so does style in man or book Brighten the content, bring it near. Dee Schulten Tone and Style 2 AP English III Tone Words1 T hroughout the course of the year, you will be expected to discuss/describe/identify the tone of a passage, a poem, or a selection. Following is a comprehensive list of words that can be used to describe tone. Learn the meanings of words with which you are unfamiliar. The more terms you know, the more precise you can be in discussing/ describing/identifying tone. abashed abhorring accusatory *acerbic admiring adoring allusive *ambiguous *ambivalent antagonistic anxious *apathetic *apologetic apprehensive audacious *authoritative baffled *bantering belligerent *bemused benevolent bewildered *biting bitter blithe blunt brisk *brusque burlesque *candid casual celebratory ceremonial cheery choleric 1 *clinical colloquial *commanding compassionate complimentary conceited *conciliatory condemnatory *condescending confident confused *contemptuous contented *contentious conversational critical curt *cynical derisive derogatory desolate despairing desperate *detached diabolic *didactic *diffident *direct disappointed disbelieving disdainful disgusted disrespectful dramatic dreary Compiled from a variety of sources. earnest ebullient ecstatic *effusive elated elegiac *elevated *eloquent *empathetic encouraging enraged eulogistic euphoric evasive exhilarated expectant exuberant *facetious *factual fanciful fatalistic fearful fervent flippant forceful foreboding *formal forthright frantic frivolous frustrated ghoulish giddy gleeful gloomy grave grim harsh *haughty hilarious holier-than-thou *hollow hopeful hopeless horrific hostile *impartial impatient *incisive *incredulous *indifferent indignant inflammatory informal informative insecure insipid insistent insolent instructive intimate *introspective ironic *irreverent jocund joking jovial joyful joyous *laudatory Dee Schulten *learned lethargic lighthearted lively *lofty ludicrous lugubrious lyrical matter-of-fact meditative melancholic mirthful mock-heroic mocking mock-serious modest *moralistic mournful mysterious *nostalgic *objective ominous optimistic outraged *outspoken paranoid passionate pathetic Tone and Style 3 *patronizing *pedantic *pensive pessimistic petty placid playful poignant *pompous powerful *pretentious proud *provocative psychotic questioning reassuring *reflective reminiscent resigned respectful restrained *reticent reverent risible romantic sanguine sarcastic *sardonic satiric *scholarly scornful seductive self-assured self-deprecating sentimental serene severe shocked shocking sinister *skeptical sly solemn somber *speculative sprightly stable stately stern stolid straightforward *strident subdued suspicious sympathetic *taunting tender tense *terse thoughtful threatening *timorous tragic tranquil turgid unambiguous uncaring uncertain unconcerned understated unsympathetic *urgent venerative vexed vibrant violent *vitriolic whimsical *wistful worshipful wrathful *wry Dee Schulten Tone and Style 4 Diction Activity Read each pair of sentences, note the tone of each sentence, and tell how diction affects the tone of each sentence. 1. The proud officer accepted the medal. The arrogant officer accepted the medal. 2. The students chuckled when Jack came into the room. The students snickered when Jack came into the room. 3. The plump waitress brought us our dinner. The obese waitress brought us our dinner. 4. The soccer enthusiast cheered the team. The soccer fanatic cheered the team. 5. The algebra problem befuddled the students. The algebra problem confused the students. 6. His curious behavior puzzled us. His bizarre behavior puzzled us. 7. Her speech stunned the audience. Her diatribe stunned the audience. 8. His unkempt appearance was not appropriate for the ceremony. His slovenly appearance was not appropriate for the ceremony. Imagery Activity Evaluate the author’s or speaker’s tone conveyed in the images of the following lines. 1. We shall not always plant while others reap The golden increment of bursting fruit 2. So we drove along between the green of the park and the stony, lifeless elegance of hotels and apartment buildings, toward the vivid, killing streets of our childhood. 3. Boys in sporadic but tenacious droves Come with sticks, as certainly as Autumn, To assault the great horse chestnut tree. 4. What does a woman do when she has put on the white veil and set out the white cake for a man and he doesn’t come? 5. I heard the trees begin to sigh and settle down for the night, the lonely cooing of a dove, and from somewhere across the creek the hoot of an owl. Dee Schulten Tone and Style 5 6. Then he was out of the room, out of the house, in the mild dust of the starlit road and the heavy rifeness of honeysuckle, the pale ribbon unspooling with terrific slowness under his running feet, reaching the gate at last and turning in, running, his heart and lungs drumming, on up the drive toward the lighted house, the lighted door. 7. He had gaps in his teeth and a rough, guttural laugh and walked with a shuffle. 8. They had once driven an old Dodge, but it no longer ran, and it now sat lopsided and windowless among the weeds beside their lane. Choose two of the items above and rewrite them, changing the imagery to change the tone. Details Activity Evaluate the use of details in the following items and tell how it contributes to the tone of each. 1. It was good to have everything clean and folded away, with the hair brushes and tonic bottles sitting straight on the white embroidered linen: the day started without fuss and the pantry shelves laid out with rows of jelly glasses and brown jugs and white stonechina jars with blue whirligigs and words painted on them: coffee, tea, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, allspice: and the bronze clock with the lion on top nicely dusted off. 2. At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less spacious. Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris. Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented in this manner. From the fourth the bones had been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound of some size. 3. Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. 4. Black reapers with the sound of steel on stones Are sharpening scythes. I see them place the hones In their hip-pockets as a thing that’s done, And start their silent swinging, one by one. Black horses drive a mower through the weeds, And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds, His belly close to the ground. I see the blade, Blood stained, continue cutting weeds and shade. 5. There it stood, and as far as I know is standing yeta gray, rotting thing with no porch, no shutters, no steps, set on a cramped lot with no grass, not even any weedsa monument to decay. Dee Schulten Tone and Style 6 6. Some few large men sat in the front parlors, without their collars, Uncles almost certainly, trying their new cigars, holding them out judiciously at arm’s length, returning them to their mouths, coughing, then holding them out again as though waiting for the explosion; and some few small aunts, not wanted in the kitchen, nor anywhere else for that matter, sat on the very edges of their chairs, poised and brittle, afraid to break, like faded cups and saucers. 7. When I think of the hometown of my youth, all that I seem to remember is dustthe brown, crumbly dust of late summerarid, sterile dust that gets into the eyes and makes them water, gets into the throat and between the toes of bare brown feet. 8. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Language Activity Like word choice, the language of a passage has control over tone. Consider language to be the entire body of words used in a text, not simply isolated bits of diction. For example, an invitation to a graduation might use formal language, whereas a biology text would use scientific and clinical language. Describe the language of each passage and tell how it affects the tone. 1. Two or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum by, they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely. There is the way we put in the time. It was a monstrous big river down theresometimes a mile and a half wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes; soon as night was most gone, we stopped navigating and tied upnearly always in the dead water under a towhead, and then cut young cottonwoods and set out the lines. 2. As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in luve am I; And I will luve thee still, my dear, Till a’ the seas gang dry. 3. Glory be to God for dappled things For skies of couple-color as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings; Landscape plotted and piecedfold, fallow, and plow; And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim. Dee Schulten Tone and Style 7 4. Said, Pull her up a bit will you, Mac, I want to unload there. Said, Pull her up my rear end, first come first serve. Said, Give her the gun, Bud, he needs a taste of his own bumper. Then the usher came out and got into the act: 5. True!nervousvery, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my sensesnot destroyednot dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthilyhow calmly I can tell you the whole story. 6. The ideal ballet body is long limbed with a small compact torso. This makes for beauty of line; the longer the arms and legs the more exciting the body line. The ideal ballet foot has a high taut instep and a wide stretch in the Achilles’ tendon. This tendon is the spring on which a dancer pushes for his jump, the hinge on which he takes the shock of landing. If there is one tendon in a dancer’s body more important than any other, it is this tendon. It is, I should say, the prerequisite for all great technique. 7. Say first, for Heaven hides nothing from thy view, Nor the deep tract of Hell, say first what causes Moved our grand parents in that happy state, Favored of Heaven so highly, to fall off From their Creator, and transgress his will For one restraint, lords of the world besides? Who first seduced them to that foul revolt? Dee Schulten Tone and Style 8 Tone Analysis: from Jamaica Inn, Daphne DuMaurier, It was a cold grey day in late November. The weather had changed overnight, when a backing wind brought a granite sky and a mizzling rain with it, and although it was not only a little after two o’clock in the afternoon the pallor of a winter evening seemed to have closed upon the hills, cloaking them in mist. It would be dark by four. The air was clammy cold, and for all the tightly closed windows it penetrated the interior of the coach. The leather seats felt damp to the hands, and there must have been a small crack in the roof, because now and again little drips of rain fell softly through, smudging the leather and leaving a dark blue stain like a splodge of ink. The wind came in gusts, at times shaking the coach as it travelled round the bend of the road, and in the exposed places on the high ground it blew with such force that the whole body of the coach trembled and swayed, rocking between the high wheels like a drunken man. The driver, muffled in a greatcoat to his ears, bent almost double in his seat in a faint endeavour to gain shelter from his own shoulders, while the dispirited horses plodded sullenly to his command, too broken by the wind and the rain to feel the whip that now and again cracked above their heads, while it swung between the numb fingers of the driver. The wheels of the coach creaked and groaned as they sank into the ruts on the road, and sometimes they flung up the soft splattered mud against the windows, where it mingled with the constant driving rain, and whatever view there might have been of the countryside was hopelessly obscured. Activities: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Diction: circle the words in the passage that contribute to its effectiveness Images: to which senses does this passage appeal? underline the “word pictures” Details: put ( ) around the facts found in the passage; list below any facts omitted from this passage Language: what one word would you use to describe the language used in the passage? Sentence structure: what is particularly effective about the structure of the sentences? Cite specific examples from the passage. Use the information above to write a detailed analysis about the tone of the passage. Tone and Style 9 Dee Schulten Tone Analysis: “Miss Rosie,” Lucille Clifton When I watch you wrapped up like garbage sitting, surrounded by the smell of too old potato peels or when I watch you in your old man’s shoes with the little toe cut out sitting, waiting for your mind like next week’s grocery I say when I watch you you wet brown bag of a woman who used to be the best looking gal in Georgia used to be called the Georgia Rose I stand up through your destruction I stand up 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 5 10 15 The shifting tone is a significant element in this poem. At what point does the shift in tone occur? How would you describe the poem’s tone before the shift? after the shift? What words and phrases establish the different tones? What images seem particularly effective? Why? What details about Miss Rosie and the speaker are evident? How do these details contribute to the tone? 6. What details are left unsaid? Why is this significant? 7. What word would you use to describe the language used by the poet? Cite examples as support. 8. What do you notice about the poem’s sentence structure? Dee Schulten Tone and Style 10 Tone Analysis: from A Separate Peace, John Knowles I started the long trudge across the fields and had gone some distance before I paid any attention to the soft and muddy ground, which was dooming my city shoes. I didn’t stop. Near the center of the fields, there were thin lakes of muddy water which I had to make my way around, my unrecognizable shoes making obscene noises as I lifted them out of the mire. With 5 nothing to block it, the wind flung wet gusts at me; at any other time, I would have felt like a fool slogging through mud and rain, only to look at a tree. A little fog hung over the river so that as I neared it I felt myself becoming isolated from everything except the river and the few trees beside it. The wind was blowing more steadily here, and I was beginning to feel cold. I never wore a hat and had forgotten gloves. There were several 10 trees bleakly reaching into the fog. Any one of them might have been the one I was looking for. Unbelievable that there were other trees which looked like it here. It had loomed in my memory as a huge lone spike dominating the riverbank, forbidding as an artillery piece, high as the beanstalk. Yet here was a scattered grove of trees, none of them of any particular grandeur. Activities 1. 2. 3. 4. What word(s) would you use to describe this passage’s tone? List the words in the passage that contribute to its tone. What are some images that contribute to the passage’s tone? Look at the structure of each sentence in the passage. How does sentence length affect the tone of the piece? 5. How does the passage’s point of view affect its tone? Dee Schulten Tone and Style 11 Tone Analysis Activity: from The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck Over the high coast mountains and over the valleys the gray clouds marched in from the ocean. The wind blew fiercely and silently, high in the air, and it swished in the brush, and it roared in the forests. The clouds came in brokenly, in puffs, in folds, in gray crags; and they piled in together and settled low over the west. And then the wind stopped and left the clouds deep and solid. The rain began with gusty showers, pauses and downpours; and then gradually it settled to a single tempo, small drops and a steady beat, rain that was gray to see through, rain that cut midday light to evening. And at first the dry earth sucked the moisture down and blackened. For two days the earth drank the rain, until the earth was full. Then puddles formed, and in the low places little lakes formed in the fields. The muddy lakes rose higher, and the steady rain whipped the shining water. At last the mountains were full, and the hillsides spilled into the streams, built them to freshets, and sent them roaring down the canyons into the valleys. The rain beat on steadily. And the streams and the little rivers edged up to the bank sides and worked at willows and tree roots, bent the willows deep in the current, cut out the roots of cottonwoods and brought down the trees. The muddy water whirled along the bank sides and crept up the banks until at last it spilled over, into the fields, into the orchards, into the cotton patches where the black stems stood. Level fields became lakes, broad and gray, and the rain whipped up the surfaces. Then the water poured over the highways, and cars moved slowly, cutting the water ahead, and leaving a boiling muddy wake behind. The earth whispered under the beat of the rain, and the streams thundered under the churning freshets. Dee Schulten Tone and Style 12 Tone Analysis Activity: from “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” Dylan Thomas It was on the afternoon of the day of Christmas Eve, and I was in Mrs. Prothero’s garden, waiting for cats, with her son Jim. It was snowing. It was always snowing at Christmas. December, in my memory, is white as Lapland, though there were no reindeer. But there were cats. Patient, cold, and callous, our hands wrapped in socks, we waited to snowball the cats. Sleek and long as jaguars and horrible-whiskered, spitting and snarling, they would slink and sidle over the white back-garden walls, and the lynx-eyed hunters, Jim and I, fur-capped and moccasined trappers from Hudson Bay, off Mumbles Road, would hurl our deadly snowballs at the green of their eyes. The wise cats never appeared. We were so still, Eskimo-footed arctic marksmen in the muffling silence of the eternal snows—eternal, ever since Wednesday—that we never heard Mrs. Prothero’s first cry from her igloo at the bottom of the garden. Or, if we heard it at all, it was, to us, like the far-off challenge of our enemy and prey, the neighbor’s polar cat. But soon the voice grew louder. “Fire!” cried Mrs. Prothero, and she beat the dinner gong. And we ran down the garden, with the snowballs in our arms, toward the house; and smoke, indeed, was pouring out of the dining room, and the gong was bombilating1, and Mrs. Prothero was announcing ruin like a town crier in Pompeii. This was better than all the cats in Wales standing on the wall in a row. We bounded into the house, laden with snowballs, and stopped at the open door of the smoke-filled room. Something was burning all right; perhaps it was Mr. Prothero, who always slept there after midday dinner with a newspaper over his face. But he was standing in the middle of the room, saying, “A fine Christmas!” and smacking at the smoke with a slipper. “Call the fire brigade,” cried Mrs. Prothero as she beat the gong. “They won’t be there,” said Mr. Prothero, “it’s Christmas.” There was no fire to be seen, only clouds of smoke and Mr. Prothero standing in the middle of them, waving his slipper as though he were conducting. “Do something,” he said. And we threw all our snowballs into the smoke—I think we missed Mr. Prothero—and ran out of the house to the telephone box. 1 “buzzing” or “humming;” Thomas has invented a new meaning for it, something like “clanging” Dee Schulten Tone and Style 13 Tone Analysis Activity: from “The Crop,” Flannery O’Connor Silly that a grocery should depress one—nothing in it but trifling domestic doings— women buying beans—riding children in those grocery go-carts—higgling about an eighth of a pound more or less of squash—what did they get out of it? Miss Willerton wondered. Where was 5 there any chance for self-expression, for creation, for art? All around her it was the same— sidewalks full of people scurrying about with their hands full of little packages and their minds full of little packages—that woman there with the child on the leash, pulling him, jerking him, dragging him away from a window with a jack-o’-lantern in it; she would probably be pulling and jerking him the rest of her life. And there was another, dropping a shopping bag all over the 10 street, and another wiping a child’s nose, and up the street an old woman was coming with three grandchildren jumping all over her, and behind them was a couple walking too close for refinement. Miss Willerton looked at the couple sharply as they came nearer and passed. The woman was plump with yellow hair and fat ankles and muddy-colored eyes. She had on high-heel pumps 15 and blue anklets, a too-short cotton dress, and a plaid jacket. Her skin was mottled and her neck thrust forward as if she were sticking it out to smell something that was always being drawn away. Her face was set in an inane grin. The man was long and wasted and shaggy. His shoulders were stooped and there were yellow knots along the side of his large, red neck. His hands fumbled stupidly with the girl’s as they slumped along, and once or twice he smiled sickly 20 at her and Miss Willerton could see that he had straight teeth and sad eyes and a rash over his forehead. “Ugh,” she shuddered. Tone and Style 14 Dee Schulten Tone Analysis Activity: “Boy at the Window,” Richard Wilbur Seeing the snowman standing all alone In dusk and cold is more than he can bear. The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare A night of gnashings and enormous moan. His tearful sight can hardly reach to where The pale-faced figure with bitumen eyes Returns him such a god-forsaken stare As outcast Adam gave to Paradise. The man of snow is, nonetheless, content, Having no wish t go inside and die. Still, he is moved to see the youngster cry. Though frozen water is his element, He melts enough to drop from one soft eye A trickle of the purest rain, a tear For the child at the bright pane surrounded by Such warmth, such light, such love, and so much fear. 5 10 15 Dee Schulten Tone and Style 15 Tone Analysis Activity: from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Shortly Tom came upon the juvenile pariah of the village, Huckleberry Finn, son of the town drunkard. Huckleberry was cordially hated and dreaded by all the mothers of the town, because he was idle and lawless and vulgar and bad -- and because all their children admired him so, and delighted in his forbidden society, and wished they dared to be like him. Tom was like 5 the rest of the respectable boys, in that he envied Huckleberry his gaudy outcast condition, and was under strict orders not to play with him. So he played with him every time he got a chance. Huckleberry was always dressed in the cast-off clothes of full-grown men, and they were in perennial bloom and fluttering with rags. His hat was a vast ruin with a wide crescent lopped out of its brim; his coat, when he wore one, hung nearly to his heels and had the rearward buttons far 10 down the back; but one suspender supported his trousers; the seat of the trousers bagged low and contained nothing, the fringed legs dragged in the dirt when not rolled up. Huckleberry came and went, at his own free will. He slept on doorsteps in fine weather and in empty hogsheads in wet; he did not have to go to school or to church, or call any being master or obey anybody; he could go fishing or swimming when and where he chose, and stay as 15 long as it suited him; nobody forbade him to fight; he could sit up as late as he pleased; he was always the first boy that went barefoot in the spring and the last to resume leather in the fall; he never had to wash, nor put on clean clothes; he could swear wonderfully. In a word, everything that goes to make life precious that boy had. So thought every harassed, hampered, respectable boy in St. Petersburg. Tone and Style 16 Dee Schulten Tone Project 1 Supplies: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Foam board – size 20x30 ($2.28 at WalMart) or poster board – size 17x28 (must be cut neatly from original size of 22x28); any color is fine. Glue, rubber cement, paste; all edges must be neatly glued down; no tape Scissors Permanent marker of some sort 2 sheets of computer paper Directions: The word itself should be displayed prominently on your poster so that it can be easily seen from anywhere in the room. Use a picture or pictures to convey the meaning of the word. On a sheet of paper, type in large letters the definition of the word. This should include the part of speech (most will be adjectives). If there are several definitions, choose the one or ones that define the word as it is used to describe the tone of an author or speaker. Obviously, we will not be able to read this from across the room. On another sheet or part of a sheet, type a quote from a famous person, from something you have read, or from a musical selection. This does not have to be lengthy. Underneath the quote, you should name the author and origin of the selection. (Either italicize all titles, or place poems, short stories, and songs in quotes, and underline novels and plays.) Choose this quote carefully because the writer’s tone must be that of the word you have selected. If your word is pensive, the tone of the selection must be pensive. The size of your letters will depend on the length of the quote. Again, we will not be able to read this from across the room. Using your permanent marker, write your first and last name neatly somewhere at the bottom of the poster. Be careful about using glitter, etc. because these accessories are not usually permanent. When we return from the holidays, each of you will present your word to the class and explain your poster. If your word is misspelled, you will receive a zero. If directions are not followed or if it is messy, you will lose points. I want to display these on the walls for the rest of the year. I will not display a messy one or an inappropriate one. 1 This assignment was shared by Susan Kittrell, who taught ninth grade Pre-AP English at Sylvan Hills Junior High School in the Pulaski County (Arkansas) Special School District. Ms. Kittrell got the idea for this assignment at an AP Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas.
