Language, Tone, and Style

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Language, Tone, and Style
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• Literature Craft Voice
• Nicholas Delbanco and Alan Cheuse

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Definitions

• Language The words of a story, including syntax
  (how words or other elements of the sentences are
  arranged).
• Tone The authors attitude toward his or her
  characters or subject matter.
• Style The characteristic way in which any
  writer uses language. Language and tone with
  other elements, like symbol and irony, create
  style.

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Language

• I know that there are many things that can open
  a story, that can start a person working. For me
  its language. Its not an idea.
• - Amy Hempel

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Reading for Language

• The language used in fiction can be lush or lean,
  formal or colloquial, but to be successful it
  must be creative.
• The language provides a window through which we
  as readers see new worlds, or come to see our own
  world differently.

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Reading for Language continued

• To explore an authors use of language, ask the
  following questions.
• What is being said, and how and why?
• What effect does the author wish to create
  through language?
• What effect does the writing have on you?
• Are there particular words that are important to
  the style and tone of the story?
• Are there key images that have an impact on the
  style and tone of the story?
• How would you describe the language chosen by the
  writer?

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• Tone is the attitude that the writer lays over
  the story itself.
• - Richard Ford

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Reading for Tone

• What tone of voice can we hear in fiction?
  Consider just some of the possibilities.
• Serious or comedic?
• Distant or intimate?
• Direct or roundabout?
• Restrained or emotional?
• Ominous or lighthearted?
• Straightforward or ironic?

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Irony

• Part of detecting tone in a story is the
  recognition of the authors use of irony if
  indeed the author is being ironic.
• Irony is a difference between what occurs and
  what you expect to occur or between what is said
  and what is meant, and often involves some sort
  of reversal in circumstances of fate.
• Examples
• A young man seeks to impress a young woman so he
  buys a new suit, gets a fresh haircut, and
  practices a more sophisticated speech, only to be
  rejected by the girl who wanted a natural sort of
  guy.
• Oedipus tries desperately to escape his curse by
  leaving his home, but he only hastens its
  fulfillment.

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Verbal and Dramatic Irony

• Verbal Irony a person saying one thing and
  meaning another.
• For example, your neighbor catches you taking out
  the trash in your wrinkled pajamas, with your
  hair askew, and says, Youre looking fabulous.
• Dramatic Irony a situation in which an author
  or narrator lets the reader know more about a
  situation than a character does.
• For example, in Kate Chopins Story of an Hour,
  the reader knows that Louise was not overjoyed to
  see her husband return home at the end of the
  story. We know that the doctors are incorrect,
  when they conclude that she had died of joy that
  kills.

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Style

• Style the way in which an author tells the
  story, or the characteristic way in which a
  writer uses language and other literary devices,
  including sentence structures, rhythm, imagery,
  symbol, and irony.
• Style is the verbal identity of the author. Over
  time, authors will develop distinct individual
  voices.
• On occasion, an author may stray from his
  distinct style to fit a narrative voice. Thomas
  Wolfes characteristic style is marked by
  elegance, polish, a rich vocabulary, and a
  powerful emotional force. This style is at work
  in his most famous novels, Look Homeward Angel
  and You Cant Go Home Again, but not at work in
  Only the Dead Know Brooklyn.

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• "You do not create a style. You work, and develop
  yourself your style is an emanation from your
  own being.
• - Katherine Anne Porter

"Style is as much under the words as in the
words. It is as much the soul as it is the flesh
of a work. - Gustave Flaubert
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Reading for Style

• Consider the following questions when trying to
  describe an authors style
• Is the language lush or lean?
• Are the sentences long and complex, or short and
  simple?
• Does the author make use of irony?
• Does the author make use of symbols?
• Do the events of the story seem plausible? Could
  they happen in actually?
• Would you consider the style elegant?
  Hard-boiled? Lyrical? Unadorned? Ornate?
  Self-conscious? Colloquial? Experimental?

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Language, Tone, and Style in The Rememberer

• Aimee Bender said that The Rememberer developed
  from a dream. I was going through reverse
  evolution with a friend, and we became dolphins
  and swam around in a tank. About five years
  later, she wrote the story.
• Tone
• The Rememberer is told in a tone that might be
  described as flat and dreary with a strong
  undercurrent of sadness. Bender creates tone
  through very simple and direct sentence
  structures, which themselves are often
  rhythmically flat, monotonous, and choppy. Yet
  to relieve the grimness Bender surprises the
  reader with humorous details, frequently
  delivered deadpan, and observations, like her
  chewing whole packs of gum in mere minutes.
• How does the tone reflect the situation of the
  characters? Their feelings? Does it reflect the
  storys theme?

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Language in The Rememberer

• Language
• Benders diction remains simple throughout the
  story. However, her diction, attention to
  detail, and the narrators contemplations contain
  wonderful surprises for the reader. Consider the
  effect of such details as Bens being kept in a
  glass baking pan, which the narrator later
  calls a cooking boat when she places Ben on a
  baby wave and wonders if the pan will wash up
  on shore for someone to make cookies in. The
  language is simple but the detail, especially
  given its context, adds surprise, humor, and
  sadness all at once.
• Consider the effect of Benders use of repetition
  in the following and elsewhere he was sad
  about the world He was always sad. Wed sit
  together and be sad and think about being sad and
  sometimes discuss sadness. Dreary? Humorous?
  Revealing of character?
• It is possible that the narrators use of
  alliteration, repetition, and humor could be a
  way for the narrator to forget her loss and
  escape into prose, thus losing herself and her
  misery in language?
• Is it also possible that writing becomes a means
  for the narrator to contemplate her loss and
  perhaps reach a fuller understanding of the
  situation.

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Rememberer continued

• Consider how The Rememberer fits into the
  following genres
• Minimalism
• Minimalism has a rich tradition in American
  literature. Minimalist writing is marked by
  slightly plotted storylines, terse and oblique
  prose, flat and cool-surfaced tones, seemingly
  realistic and even hyperrealistic details, and
  characters often more extrospective than
  introspective. Ernest Hemingway and Raymond
  Carver are often associated with minimalism.
• Magical Realism or Magic Realism
• Magical realism is a tendency in the arts,
  especially in painting and fiction, to present
  works with a conventionally realistic surface and
  conventionally realistic elements, but with
  subtle undercurrents of supernatural and mystical
  possibilities, which might draw from myth, dream,
  fantasy, and magic, and go beyond simple
  coincidence. It is as if something magical
  intervenes on the characters and their worlds.
  Other authors associated with magical realism
  include Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel Garcia
  Márquez.
• Consider Benders statement in her Conversation
  on Writing under Fiction and Magic in which
  she mentions magical realism and its imaginative
  leaps as a way to write with more depth and
  perspective.

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Language, Tone, and Style in Only the Dead Know
Brooklyn

• Thomas Wolfe experimented with different styles
  and new ways to tell stories. Born in North
  Carolina, Wolfe moved to Brooklyn in 1931. Only
  the Dead Know Brooklyn could only be set in one
  place.
• Style
• Wolfe tells this story in a Brooklyn dialect. To
  obtain a better sense of sound, read a section of
  the story aloud. Is Wolfes use of dialect
  effective? Does it seem colorful? Stereotypical?
  Disrespectful? Humorous? Is it a tribute to
  Brooklyns uniqueness and its people?
• Why is the big guy, an obvious outsider, quoted
  with a Brooklyn accent? Are the tones of the big
  guys speech different from the narrators and
  others?

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Language, Tone, and Style in Only the Dead Know
Brooklyn

• Depiction of Brooklyn
• Brooklyn is as much a character as any of the
  individuals in the story perhaps more so, as
  none of the characters is named. Like the
  dialect of the narrator, Brooklyn is unique,
  rough, and colorful. It is also dangerous,
  diverse, and complex, a place where residents
  learn their surroundings and develop
  resourcefulness not through maps but through
  experience, a place where brawls are commonplace
  and where bartenders keep baseball bats for
  defense. Its various and diverse neighborhoods,
  suggests the narrator, cannot be known in a
  single lifetime. Yet the residents also seem
  provincial, seemingly concerned only about their
  immediate environment, and become overly
  impassioned about minutia.

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Only the Dead Know Brooklyn continued

• Contrast and Irony
• Part of Wolfes style is to use contrast. The
  narrator, for instance, contrasts with the big
  guy in several ways. The narrator sees himself
  as street smart, a man of the world, or at least
  a man of Brooklyn, an experienced man who doesnt
  need a map but relies on his instincts and his
  resourcefulness honed by experience. Yet the
  narrator is actually quite provincial, although
  he kindly takes the big guy, who remains very
  curious to him, under his protective wings.
• Ironically, the big guy is more adventurous,
  more daring, and more willing to explore strange
  territories than the narrator. The big guy is
  more outgoing, unafraid to ask directions and
  engage strangers in conversation. He
  demonstrates a different kind of toughness.

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Only the Dead Know Brooklyn continued

• Significance of Swimming
• The narrator is proud of how he learned to swim,
  which indicates, he believes, his toughness, his
  resourcefulness, and his ability to survive.
  (His brother pushed him off the docks.) However,
  the big guy is swimming not drowning in
  Brooklyn, as he survives his Brooklyn experience,
  encouraged not by a brother but by his own
  curiosity and confidence.

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Language, Tone, and Style in Saboteur

• Ha Jin communicates meaning in Saboteur through
  many different strategies and techniques all of
  which form the style of Saboteur.
• Point of View
• Ha Jin tells his story through a third-person
  omniscient narrator, which allows the reader
  access to all the characters thoughts. We see
  Chius somewhat gradual loss of confidence in a
  system which he supported and we see Fenjins
  response to him at the end, through which we can
  infer Ha Jins feelings about Chius act. This
  point of view allows Ha Jin to include the last
  paragraph which brings the story to a shocking
  conclusion. Is Ha Jin at all sympathetic to
  Chiu? Is he angrier at Mao and the state?
• Tone
• The story is told in a direct, restrained tone.
  The narrative voice restrains anger and
  bitterness, which are never far from the surface.
  Yet there is also a sense of urgency, as, he
  believes, he has a story that must be told.
  There is no comic relief in the Saboteur.

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Saboteur continued

• Symbol (including physical appearance)
• Ha Jin uses physical appearance to reveal his
  characters and their positions in the culture.
  Both Chiu and his bride are weak reflective
  ultimately of their weak positions in the state,
  despite a life of comparative comfort. Chiu
  suffers from heart disease and hepatitis and his
  wife has pale cheeks, headaches, and perhaps weak
  eyes. The policemen, however, are empowered
  they are stout, tall and of athletic build
  a human version perhaps of the large concrete
  statue of Mao.
• Since Chiu lectures on acceptable subjects, he
  and his wife live a comfortable life. Among
  other comforts, his television (rare in China at
  the time) reveals his status and privileged
  position. On one professional retreat, Chiu
  was the only one among his colleagues not to be
  affected by the fleas. The fleas are symbolic
  of governmental interference.
• At the end of the story, when Chiu turns bitter,
  disillusioned, frustrated, and enraged, and with
  his hepatitis finally attacking him, Chiu makes
  up his mind to do something for revenge. On his
  way to the train station with Fenjin, he stops at
  several restaurants to spread his hepatitis
  infection. Fenjin notices that his former
  professor looks ferocious, jaundiced, and
  ugly, reflective of the moral decay of Chiu who
  will make innocent people suffer and die for his
  mistreatment.

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Saboteur continued

• Irony
• The central irony of Saboteur is that despite
  his intellectual accomplishments and his
  privileged status, Chiu is naïve to his
  governments daily practices. Even after his
  arrest, he trusts the government, its justice
  system, and newspapers. Before the chief of the
  bureau, Chiu evokes his privileged status (Im a
  scholar, a philosopher, and expert in dialectical
  materialism) and he demands compensation and a
  letter of apology for his arrest which is
  hardly the threat Chiu believes it to be.
• Title
• Saboteur takes on multiple meanings some of
  which are ironic. The term is first applied by
  the policeman at the beginning of the story to
  Chiu for disrupting public order of course,
  it is a false charge. Before the chief of the
  bureau, Chiu calls the policemen saboteurs.
• By the end of the story, we realize that there
  are several saboteurs Chiu for his final act of
  vengeance, the policemen, the chief of the
  bureau, and ultimately, Mao Zedong for creating
  his totalitarian regime. All sabotage individual
  freedom and justice.

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Language, Tone, and Style in How to Date a
Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie

• In How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl,
  Whitegirl, or Halfie, Junot Diaz presents a
  narrator who reveals more about himself than he
  realizes.
• Language, Tone, and Point of View
• The narrator writes in colloquial English with
  occasional Spanish words and phrases which reveal
  his background as a Dominican inner-city youth.
  He writes in a self-assured, confident tone with
  occasional lapses which reveal a low self-esteem
  underneath the machismo posturing.
• The narrator uses his style, which includes mild
  neighborhood vulgarities, to establish
  credibility and to establish further his
  reputation as an experienced and tough man, a
  voice of authority on women.
• His manual on dating is written in a language,
  tone, and style that might be defined as urban
  teenage bravado. As in most how-to manuals, the
  narrator addresses the reader directly in the
  second person. Would the authenticity and
  effectiveness of the story be compromised if it
  were written in standard English?
• As part of his style, consider his use of detail.
  Particularly revealing is how the author uses
  government cheese to reveal the narrators
  poverty, youth, and his evaluation of girls from
  different ethnicities.

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How to Date continued

• Irony and Characterization
• Although he is just in high school, the narrator
  presents himself as an experienced man of the
  world, one who knows how to manipulate different
  kinds of young women as well as their parents.
  Readers will find much of what he says to be
  humorous and his advice on how to be smooth,
  ironic. If we read carefully, we can determine
  that he has actually had few, if any, successful
  seductions. In fact, as we read, we become aware
  of his lack of confidence and his insecurity, if
  not his low self-esteem.
• Consider the humor and irony in several passages
  perhaps his confrontation with Howie, the
  neighborhood bully, and his defense for running
  away (never lose a fight on the first date)
  his false expression of sympathy (putting the
  hamburger down and saying, It must be hard)
  and his suggestion on how to use a polluted
  sunset for Romantic effectiveness.

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For Further Consideration

• Rewrite a section of one of the stories in this
  chapter in a different style. For instance,
  write either Only the Dead Know Brooklyn or
  How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl,
  or Halfie in another dialect or in standard
  English. What is the effect?
• Consider the importance of setting to Only the
  Dead Know Brooklyn, Saboteur, and How to
  Date. How do the settings affect the characters
  and their judgments and evaluations?
• Compare and contrast the tone of The Rememberer
  and Saboteur. How does the tone reflect theme
  and character?