For Five Extra Credit Points.
Identify the tone in the story and name two specific places in the text that support that choice.
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- Todd's 110 Garage
- Born and raised near signs of Lewis and Clark's Missouri River portage, I now live in Auburn, WA and teach at Green River CC and Muckleshoot Tribal College. I have an M.A. in English literature from The University of Montana. I'm married and have no kids.
3 comments:
I would say that the tone of the story is rather morbid. It seems like the author depicts a normal ordinary family where things go terribly wrong..first the accident they get in, and then meeting the Misfit himself. Another example of the morbid theme is when the other two helpers come back after killing Bailey in the woods. The Misfit himself seems fine, like nothing had ever happened. He also seems like a very irritable person, especially when the grandmother touches him on the shoulder and he puts a few bullets through her chest. It almost seems like there is no real moral to the story because the bag guy technically wins...
I find the tone to be rather ironic. We start the story off with the grandmother talking about the Misfit and how she couldn't answer to her conscience if she took her children in any direction towards him. What are the odds that she would actually run into the Misfit? "If you don't want to go to Florida, why dontcha stay at home" John Wesley asks. And then the next morning the grandmother is the first one in the car! How ironic is it that the grandmother is also the reason that they are driving down that road in the first place (when the house was really in Tennessee) and it is also ironic that her cat causes the accident! The grandmother tells the Misfit he recognizes him the list goes on! Could we as readers have predicted such an ending from a beginning that began with the grandmother vouching that she would never be anywhere close to something like this?
I agree that the tone is ironic, but I also find the tone of the story to be very informal. The informal tone is first set when the grandmother is talking to Bailey at the table. Her relaxed language not only captures the southern setting in which they are placed, but also sets the informal tone for the remainder of the story. Another example of this when the family stops at The Tower for barbecued sandwiches. The conversation between the family and Red Sammy is full of simple grammatical structures and familiar vocabulary, thus making the tone very informal.
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