Tone In Pirandello's From The Things They Carried

Communication is paramount to, well, everything. Whether you are the director of a film, a speech writer, or the author of a novel, getting your across is key. Certain words and phrases can help you do that. An author’s tone, or how they feel towards a topic, and how they show it, tells their audience what they’re feeling, creating the mood of the text. An author’s tone can be determined by their word choice. And subsequently, their tone can give insight into who they are or who a character is. Or at the very least, ponder what they might be like. Their word choice is so important because words have have connotations. Unlike a word 's denotation, which is its literal meaning, a word’s connotation is the ideas and imagery that come with it, and the emotions they invoke. On the subject of author’s, Tim O’Brien once wrote a novel by the name of “From the Things They Carried”, about a group of American soldiers in the Vietnam war. This piece of writing is an excellent tool for the analysis of tone. The way he …show more content…
“War” is a story about death and love and loss and most obviously, War. Several passengers aboard a train talk about their sons, who have all gone to fight (World War II). When two new mourners arrive, a married couple - a woman drowning in her own tears and her frail, timid husband, a controversial conversation ensues. The husband instructs others to give his wife their sympathy because their only son has recently gone to war on the front lines. Other married pairs scold the husband, telling him how he should be grateful they only have one son going and not several, and that he’s still currently alive. After a long, heated discussion about patriotism and dead and endangered soldier children, a pompous fat man from the corner of the cabin interjects. He argues with the other passengers about patriotism and if we should even listen to young boys because they are so