2.5. Author’s tone and intent

Writing can be seductive in different ways, covering a whole range of responses and interests, highly influenced by coherence and the view, which lies in the complex interaction between the author’s intention and the reader’s ability to decode it. While reading engages us and holds our attention with well-made form and significant content, we are encouraged to accept the persuasive intent of the text – the author’s desire to get us to change our minds, accept a new idea, or perform an act that we might not have done without it. Being persuaded is a subtle process, intensely personal and often unpredictable, often accounted for experiences and feelings similar to those of central characters, or an argument we are open-minded about, finally because we want our feelings and opinions reinforced.

Aesthetic responses are difficult to describe because they involve memories and sensations, personal and emotional reasons. They reveal the extent to which readers have taken part in making meaning of the works they encounter by opening themselves to the works as fully as possible. It follows that the text you read is written from a particular point of view, which shapes or influences possible responses.

Sometimes the narrator’s opinion is made clear in a direct address to the reader; sometimes it emerges through the tone of the narrative, its attitude to the given subject (tone can be viewed as an expression of attitude). To put it differently, things expressed in text are seen from a certain perspective in terms of their relation to the events and characters. In any case, the key items in the making of tone are the following: who it is who tells the story, from what perspective, with what sense of distance or closeness, with what possibilities of knowledge, and with what interest.

It suffices to look at the sentence structure (syntax) and word choice (diction) in order to figure out whether the passage is neutral (objective, explanatory, detached) or opinionated and emotional (subjective). If the text is clearly subjective, it is possible to decide if the author is positive (approving, sympathetic) about the subject matter or negative (disapproving) about it.

The author’s tone tends to be biased in many ways; it suggests his predisposition to influence the reader through emotional appeal and/or slanted presentation material. Bias may also be revealed through highly emotional statements, name-calling, stereotyping or over-generalization, faulty assumption based on weak or inaccurate information, and contradiction.

While tone is the deliberate stance the writer takes toward the subject of his or her writing, mood is the overall climate of feeling or emotional setting a writer creates as a backdrop for the action. For instance, Mary Shelly creates a powerful mood of gloom, horror, and suspense in the following excerpt from her novel Frankenstein choosing words whose connotations will evoke these feelings in her audience:

It was a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and convulsive motion agitated its limbs.

A writer’s diction affects both tone and mood. Word choice, details, images, figurative language, and repetition all contribute to the mood of a piece of writing; these elements invite the reader to participate in the moment, to become part of a scene, and to have the same feeling.

Sometimes we can speak about pathos of literary works (strong emotional and evaluative attitude to the subject matter of writing). We distinguish heroic, dramatic, tragic, satirical, comic, sentimental, romantic pathos.

Questions: What’s the author’s tone? Is the extract neutral or opinionated and emotional, even pathetic? Is the author positive (approving, sympathetic) about the subject matter or negative (disapproving)? What’s the author’s intent? Is his/her view biased? What is the mood of the extract? What aspects of the human condition are foregrounded, what are suppressed?

Language in use for analysis

Conclusion reinforces dominant impression…

The reader’s brain and imagination is provoked to get to work to help him find the main meaning…

The author puts a point across clearly…

Enough details are included to emphasize the author’s views…

Due to the great attachment of…

This effect is achieved in a very peculiar way by pointing out that…

These ideas associated with …/ perfectly suggest for the reader that…

It looks as if it were the exposure of/revelation of…

New values are brought home to us in…

We are made sensitive to…

The main interest of the extract lies in …

…the given information produces a definite effect of making the issues more vivid to the eye…

The author’s standpoint sounds to be more convincing…

It makes the reader feel how …

The reader gets a vivid notion of…

We are encouraged to make certain judgements…

Judging from … it would seem that …

The author emphasizes the importance of …

The main concern in the text is …

The extract makes sense to think…/ reflects modern society / reaffirms the role of / proves that…/ makes judgements about

to identify topic links and associated words and phrases

The way the writer develops his ideas…

to figure out what sort of topic mightbe covered

What really matters is…

… forms the setting and the main theme of…

broad generalizations concerning…

It is made quite clear that …

The effect is further enhanced…

The excerpt is of interest because…

By way of commenting on the subject it might be of interest to point out / to consider the way the writer develops his ideas

Arguments about …and their interrelation are embodied in a series of extracts…

There is a clearly perceptible approach…

… are to be traced in the author’s outlook

The would-be solution to the problem is seen as the only way to true morality and…

Problem-solving activities are supposed to organize the arguments for and against…

This excerpt allows scope for personal involvement and the opportunity to express the personal response to …

The author is concerned about moral issues…

The text aims at a psychological influence on the reader to convince him of the reality and authenticity of the described topic/subject

This is achieved by means of …/ by the use of coherent logical structures / by reference to events, personalities

The passage deals with / focuses on…

The extract is aimed at acquainting the reader with some disputable problems of social/political/economic aspects of life

It is a lively account of the circumstances and the factors which led to the development of …

The writer is basically describing…

This is an evident answer to the problem

…makes explicit statements about…