Tone shapes and helps people understand the overall mood of a story. In Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," tone not only shapes but changes throughout the story. In the beginning of "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" the tone is lyrical, and joyful, because the author speaks of a place with "joyous" and "smiling" people where music plays all the time, a place where everyone would want to live. As the story progresses the tone shifts into a hopeless and contemptuous one. Omela has secrets that would shame any town and is worse than one would think. Le Guin uses words like "terrible justice" to convey how twisted society in the Omelas are. The reader can start to feel pity for the town.
Gabriel Marquez's "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" also shifts in tone but starts out pitiful and hopeless and becomes lively and optimistic. When the body of Esteban is found in the beginning, the story has a hopeless and pitiful tone. The townspeople feel Esteban is "condemned to going through doors side ways"(Marquez 331) because of large stature and his dead body looks "so "forever dead, so defenseless."(Marquez 331). As soon as the people of the town are done weeping for Esteban the story's tone turns into one that is full of hope and joy. Marquez uses words like "startled hens"(332) to show how alive and hopeful the women are about Esteban death. During his funeral the townspeople "fought for the privilege"(Marquez 333) to carry his casket the reader can see with the words like fought and privilege that the townspeople are exited and looking forward to bury Esteban and how positive the tone of the story is.
What makes Omelas so horrible when it at first seems so great?
ReplyDeleteWhile finding a giant corpse sounds hopeless and pitiful, does the narrator tell the tale in that tone? Separate your own reaction from how the narrator tells the story. The narrator does not editorialize much. The story does end on a positive note because of the action.