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Style
Definition of Tone
The tone of a piece of writing is its general character or attitude, which might be cheerful or depressive, sarcastic or sincere, comical or mournful, praising or critical, and so on. For instance... read full definition
The tone of a piece of writing is its general character or attitude, which might be cheerful or depressive, sarcastic or sincere, comical or mournful, praising or critical... read full definition
The tone of a piece of writing is its general character or attitude, which might be cheerful or depressive, sarcastic or sincere, comical... read full definition
Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis:
Scythe has an omniscient third-person narrator who occasionally has interior knowledge of certain characters, most often Rowan and Citra. This narrator has an ironic, comedic tone, one fairly typical for young adult novels. Most often the narrator's irony highlights differences between the mortal and post-mortal worlds. In Chapter 6, the narrator implies that of all the societal ills that the Thunderhead has eliminated, one stands out: there are no more middle seats on airplanes. The narrator describes this as one of many "unpleasant things" that no longer bother immortal humans:
“Are you heading out or heading home?” asked the woman sitting beside him in 15A. There was no 15B—the concept of the B seat, where one had to sit between two other passengers, had been eliminated along with other unpleasant things, like disease and government.
The narrator implies that disease, governments, and middle seats are all equally "unpleasant." This irony shows how post-mortal humans can hardly even conceive of the problems of the mortal world. This ironic tone is ubiquitous in the novel, intending to frame the foibles of the post-mortal world for a mortal audience.
The science fiction utopia of Scythe requires Shusterman to do quite a bit of world-building. This world-building typically takes place through the eyes of Rowan and Citra: as they encounter and learn about unfamiliar circumstances, so does the reader. All the new features of the post-mortal world—the Thunderhead, medical advances, the scythes—are complicated, so the narrator takes a matter-of-fact tone on these concepts to make them accessible and believable to the reader. In addition, often this world-building takes place in the excerpts from gleaning journals at the end of each chapter. Most of these journal entries are written by Scythe Curie and reflect her apprehensive tone about the early development of the Scythedom. (Other journal entries, like those written by Goddard, Faraday, or Rowan, tend to be more straightforward and related to the plot.) Through this deliberate tone, Shusterman's narrator depicts a world that is believable while comparing it ironically to the world the reader knows.
Related Themes:
