ANALYZING THE EFFECT OF WORD CHOICE ON TONE

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For each of the following extracts from famous literature, determine the tone of the passage, and then identify the words which help create this tone.

1
FROM THE SCHOOL

And the trees all died. They were orange trees. I don’t know why they
BY DONALD BARTHELME

gloomy
TONE:_________________________________________________________________________
died, they just died. Something wrong with the soil possibly or maybe
Words which create this tone:
the stuff we got from the nursery wasn’t the best. We complained died, depressing, complained
about it. So we’ve got thirty kids there, each kid had his or her own
little tree to plant and we’ve got these thirty dead trees. All these kids
looking at these little brown sticks, it was depressing.

2
I passed the night wretchedly. Sometimes my pulse beat so quickly and
FROM FRANKENSTEIN
BY MARY SHELLEY

hardly that I felt the palpitation of every artery; at others, I nearly negative
TONE:_________________________________________________________________________
sank to the ground through languor and extreme weakness. Mingled Words which create this tone:

with this horror, I felt the bitterness of disappointment; dreams that afraid, overthrow
had been my food and pleasant rest for so long a space were now
become a hell to me; and the change was so rapid, the overthrow so
complete!

3
FROM ‘JOY IN THE WOODS’
BY CLAUDE MCKAY

There is joy in the woods just now,

witty
TONE:_________________________________________________________________________
The leaves are whispers of song,
Words which create this tone:
And the birds make mirth on the bough
And music the whole day long, joy, dwell, mirth
And God! to dwell in the town
In these springlike summer days

4
The room was dingy and windowless, lit by a single oil lamp dangling
FROM HARRY POTTER
BY J. K. ROWLING

from the low ceiling. A faint smell of fried fish lingered about the place. TONE:_________________________________________________________________________
uncertain
Wooden filing cabinets stood around the walls; from their labels, Harry Words which create this tone:
could see that they contained details of every pupil Filch had ever pun-
ished. Fred and George Weasley had an entire drawer to themselves.
A highly polished collection of chains and manacles hung on the wall dingy, plunished,
behind Filch’s desk.

5
The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the
FROM THE GREAT GATSBY
BY F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and ca- TONE:_________________________________________________________________________
cheerful
sual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusias- Words which create this tone:
tic meetings between women who never knew each other’s names. The
lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now
the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music, and the opera of voices
laughter, enthusiastic,
pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with
prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word.

6
Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheez-
BY CHARLES DICKENS
FROM BLEAK HOUSE

ing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the mellow
TONE:_________________________________________________________________________
afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog Words which create this tone:

cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little ‘prentice
boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets fog, misty clouds
into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in
a balloon and hanging in the misty clouds.

7
Already other tributes have reached the Cornucopia and are spreading
BY SUZANNE COLLINS
FROM THE HUNGER GAMES

out to attack. Yes, the girl from District 2, ten yards away, running to- TONE:_________________________________________________________________________
scared
ward me, one hand clutching a half-dozen knives. I’ve seen her throw in Words which create this tone:
training. She never misses. And I’m her next target. All the general fear
I’ve been feeling condenses into an immediate fear of this girl, this pred-
ator who might kill me in seconds. Adrenaline shoots through me and I fear, running
sling the pack over one shoulder and run full-speed for the woods. I can
hear the blade whistling toward me and reflexively hike the pack up to
protect my head. The blade lodges in the pack.
© Stacey Lloyd 2016