Katharine Brush's Use Of Tone And Point Of View In Birthday Party

Katharine Brush, in her short story “Birthday Party”, illustrates a couple celebrating the husband’s birthday in a small restaurant. Brush uses the literary devices of tone and point of view to communicate her purpose: to illustrate how observers to a situation do not understand the full picture, but pass judgement regardless.

The confident tone adopted by the narrator serves to enhance the message that the observer believes their opinions to be correct. This tone is evident whenever the narrator makes observations, such as saying that the couple were “unmistakably married”, where the word “unmistakable” portrays an absolute confidence in the assessment.

Brush uses an outside observer point of view to communicate how people pass judgement