Tone Exercise #3                                      

READ AND FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS CAREFULLY.

Remember, tone = author’s/speaker’s attitude

1. You should work ON YOUR OWN for this assignment.
2. Choose TWO (2) of the passages below to work with.
3. For each passage you choose, mark the letter of the passage (A, B, or C) on a separate sheet of loose-leaf paper.  Then, choose ONE of the tone words listed below to describe the tone of the passage you picked.  Write this word next to the appropriate letter.  (If you need a dictionary, please get a green one out of the back cabinet.)
4. THEN (in complete sentences) write a defense of your tone word choice.  What exactly in the passage (what words or phrases) tell you that the word you picked best describes the tone?  Explain yourself using 3 or more words/phrases from each passage.  You will want to talk about associations and connotations of those words/phrases in your explanation to prove yourself.

Tone Words:  defiant, angry, delighted, fearful, passionate, sarcastic, outspoken, comic, gloomy, belligerent, suspenseful, admiring, grave, tense, thoughtful, apprehensive

PASSAGE A

“PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”

--The Notice from the beginning of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

PASSAGE B

“I never saw a more interesting creature: his eyes have generally an expression of wildness, and even madness; but there are moments when, if any one performs an act of kindness towards him, or does him any the most trifling service, his whole countenance is lighted up, as it were, with a beam of benevolence and sweetness that I never saw equaled.”

--From the Preface of Frankenstein

PASSAGE C

“Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;”

--From “The Raven”

PASSAGE D

“The next moment soldiers came running through the wood, at first in twos and threes, then ten or twenty together, and at last in such crowds that they seemed to fill the whole forest.”

--From Through the Looking Glass