1.4. Author’s tone and intent

There is a complex interaction between the author’s intention and the reader’s ability to decode it. While reading engages readers and holds their attention with well-made form and significant content, they are encouraged to accept the persuasive intent of the text – the author’s desire to get them to change our minds, accept a new idea, or perform an act. 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 one is open-minded about, finally because one wants his/her 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 literary work they encounter by opening themselves to it.

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). The use of the term “tone” in reference to texts was introduced by I.A. Richards. Tone is the attitude or feeling displayed by the author towards the readers and what occurs in the text. 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). A writer can adopt various tones – playful, serious, ironic, solemn, etc. 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.

To see the difference between neutral and emotional writing compare the following extracts. The first, Mao. Unknown story (2005) by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, is a political biography of modern times where the authors shed the myths on which Mao’s national and international reputation rested. The authors objectively portray tyranny, degeneracy, mass murder and promiscuity: “From autumn 1953 nationwide requisitioning was imposed, in order to extract more food to pay for the Superpower Programme. The system followed that of a labour camp: leave the population just enough to keep them alive, and take all the rest. The regime decided that what constituted subsistence was an amount of food equivalent to 200 kg of processed grain per year, and this was called “basic food”. The second, The Insurrection in Dublin by Irish writer James Stephens, is a superb eyewitness account of the Easter rising of 1916. One afternoon Stephens watched in horror as rebel troops, in a botched attempt at casting off British rule, threw up a barricade that ultimately led to a civilian being shot right before him: “This has taken everyone by surprise. It is possible, that, with exception of their staff, it has taken the volunteers themselves by surprise; but today our peaceful city is no longer peaceful; guns are sounding, or rolling and crackling from different directions, and, although rarely, the rattle of machine gun can be heard also. (…) After a lie truth bursts out, and it is no longer the radiant and serene goddess we knew or hoped for – it is a disease, it is a moral syphilis and will ravage until the body in which it can dwell has been purged. Mr. Redmond told the lie and he is answerable to England for the violence she had to be guilty of, and to Ireland for the desolation to which we have had to submit. Without his lie there had been no Insurrection; without it there had been at this moment, and for a year past, an end to the “Irish question”. Ireland must in ages gone have been guilty of abominable crimes or she could not at this juncture have been afflicted with John Redmond”.

The author’s tone tends to be biased in many ways; it suggests his/her 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. American feminist author M. French claims: “Whatever they may be in public life, whatever their relations with men, in their relations with women, all men are rapists and that’s all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, their codes.” (The Women’s Room (1977)).

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 (1818) choosing words with connotations that evoke these gloomy, anxious 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”.

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

Sometimes we can speak about pathosof literary works (strong emotional and evaluative attitude to the subject matter of writing). We distinguishheroic, dramatic, tragic, satirical, comic, sentimental, romantic pathos. We should also distinguish pathos of character’s speech and author’s pathos:

• pathos of character’s speech. The climax of The Scarlet Letter (1850) by N. Hawthorne is Hester Prynne’s and Arthur’s Dimmesdale’s date in the forest where Hester pleads her lover to flee to Europe: “Begin all anew! <…> The future is yet full of trial and success. There is happiness to be enjoyed! There is good to be done! Exchange this false life of thine for a true one <…> Preach! Write! Act! Do anything, save to lie down and die!”

• author’s pathos. The author’s pathos can be observed in the same book by N. Hawthorne when Dimmesdale is spoken about: “Yes; their minister whom they so loved – and who so loved them all; that he could not depart heavenward without a sigh – had the foreboding of untimely death upon him, and would soon leave them in their tears! <…> Never, from the soil of New England, had gone up such shout! Never, on New England soil, had stood the man honored by his mortal brethren as the preacher!”

Questions

What’s the author’s tone? In what vein is the story told? Is it calm and tranquil or is it charged with tension and emotions? 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? What note does the initial part of the story strike? On what note does the story end? How does the word choice and syntax contribute to the mood? What images impart the story a cheerful / melancholy / angry / humorous / sarcastic tone?

Language in use for analysis

to write with delicacy and compassion

to figure out what sort of topic might be covered

to reaffirm the role of / to prove that

to produce a definite effect of making the issues more vivid to the eye

to use exaggeration / humour / irony to emphasise his point

a vivid and evocative story

in a freewheeling, informal, jokey way

broad generalizations

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

The author’s attitude is not that of admiring / sympathetic … but that of…

The tone communicates amusement / anger / affection / sorrow / contempt…

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 …

New values are brought home to us in…

We are made sensitive to…

The main interest of the extract lies in …

The author’s standpoint sounds to be more convincing…

It makes the reader feel how …

The reader gets a vivid notion of…

Judging from … it would seem that …

The author emphasizes the importance of …

The way the writer develops his ideas…

What really matters is…

The effect is further enhanced…

There is a clearly perceptible approach…

The infectious sense of humour sparkles on every page.

The short story is humorous, sometimes with a touch of black humour, and full of biting wit and bizarre situations.

The storytelling is bizarre, alarming and disturbing, always with a nasty sting in the tail.

The author sounds well-intentioned / eccentric / rather hypocritical / condescending / dismissive / critical / disapproving / embarrassed / suggestible / insensitive / concerned / convincing / doubtful / false / logical / enthusiastic / patronizing / lighthearted / detached / moody / unpredictable / aloof / hostile / irritated / challenging / impartial …

Sometimes the tone is implied rather than stated explicitly.

It is really important to understand the writer’s tone if you are to understand subtleties of meaning.

The writer appeals fairly to …

The assertions / allegations are quite founded / completely unfounded