Previous
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 2
Explanation and Analysis:
The tone of The Giver ranges from lighthearted to serious, but even at its most serious it avoids didactic passages in favor of letting the plot and characters speak for themselves. The narrator uses subtle irony and Jonas's own feelings and observations to help young readers draw their own conclusions about the Community. One example occurs in Chapter 2, when Lily asks for her "comfort object":
“Lily,” her mother said fondly, “you’re very close to being an Eight, and when you’re an Eight, your comfort object will be taken away. It will be recycled to the younger children. You should be starting to go off to sleep without it.”
But her father had already gone to the shelf and taken down the stuffed elephant which was kept there.
Jonas watches this brief exchange between Lily and their parents. He trusts his parents implicitly to guide him and give him the right answers about how to navigate his own process of growing up. And yet, ironically, his parents have differing ideas about how to help Lily with the same thing. Their mother thinks she should already be practicing life without her stuffed animal. Their father, on the other hand, seems to think that she should not be forced to grow up too soon. The narrator does not comment any further on this disagreement, but rather leaves it to Jonas and the reader to see that the adults of the Community may not have all the right answers.
The uncertainty over the enforcement of Lily's milestones further raises the question of whether it is fair to expect 12-year-olds like Jonas to begin serious training for the careers they will have for the rest of their lives. Again, the narrator never explicitly critiques this custom, instead setting Jonas and the reader up to question it for themselves. By the end of the novel, Jonas has developed a critical stance toward the Community, which comes through in the way the narrator describes his feelings and actions. By taking a mostly-neutral tone and allowing Jonas to go through his own experience of disillusionment, the narrator empowers young readers to practice critical thinking for themselves instead of trusting implicitly in adults to tell them what is right.
Related Themes:
