American author, John C. Maxwell once said this about tone, “People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.” Tone is the general character or attitude of a place, piece of writing, etc. In our world today, we use tone for various things such as understanding texts.
In the poem, “The Gift” and “Those Winter Sundays,” the characters describe memories of or with their fathers. You would think that in these poems the tone would be described as a positive, happy, loving tone. However, in the two poems, the characters catch the reader by surprise by using opposite tones to describe one of their memories with their father.
In “The Gift” the speaker is a 7 year old kid who has somehow gotten a metal splinter in his or her palm. As the father …show more content…
As he looks back on his childhood, he sees that he was the only one that remembered his dad’s sacrifices to keep his family up and running. The text states, “I’d wake and hear the cold splintering,breaking.” This shows the father gets up early to make sure his family is nice and cozy in the warmth of their house by lighting a wood fire. However, the father never got thanked for this. The fact that no one ever thanked his dad in the poem the makes the reader understand that he or she is depressed or sad. The first stanza states, “Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, … No one ever thanked him.” This shows that the kid notices the hard work his father does for the family and seems to be the only one appreciative of that, which makes him depressed and sad. Because of the boy’s constant depression he awakes, “fearing the chronic angers of the that house.” This shows that the kid is so caught up with the fact no one thanks his father, which in turn makes him fear the environment of the house when he wakes up in the morning. The speaker also says, “What did I know , what did I know of love’s austere…” The word austere shows that there is only love between the father and the son. Without his old son, the father would be lonely with no one alongside him to thank him for what he does for the
In the poem, “The Gift” and “Those Winter Sundays,” the characters describe memories of or with their fathers. You would think that in these poems the tone would be described as a positive, happy, loving tone. However, in the two poems, the characters catch the reader by surprise by using opposite tones to describe one of their memories with their father.
In “The Gift” the speaker is a 7 year old kid who has somehow gotten a metal splinter in his or her palm. As the father …show more content…
As he looks back on his childhood, he sees that he was the only one that remembered his dad’s sacrifices to keep his family up and running. The text states, “I’d wake and hear the cold splintering,breaking.” This shows the father gets up early to make sure his family is nice and cozy in the warmth of their house by lighting a wood fire. However, the father never got thanked for this. The fact that no one ever thanked his dad in the poem the makes the reader understand that he or she is depressed or sad. The first stanza states, “Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, … No one ever thanked him.” This shows that the kid notices the hard work his father does for the family and seems to be the only one appreciative of that, which makes him depressed and sad. Because of the boy’s constant depression he awakes, “fearing the chronic angers of the that house.” This shows that the kid is so caught up with the fact no one thanks his father, which in turn makes him fear the environment of the house when he wakes up in the morning. The speaker also says, “What did I know , what did I know of love’s austere…” The word austere shows that there is only love between the father and the son. Without his old son, the father would be lonely with no one alongside him to thank him for what he does for the