Wise Blood: Tone 1 key example

Throughout the novel, and even throughout individual chapters, the narrator's perspective wanders between characters. For example, much of the first chapter is focalized from the perspective of Mrs. Wally Bee Hitchcock, even though she's a minor character who only appears at the very start of the novel. As a result, the reader's initial impression of Hazel is partially informed by how strangers encounter him. Similarly, the final chapter is mostly focalized from the perspective of Mrs. Flood, which gives the reader a final look at Hazel from the outside. She represents a sort of voice of reason, and she confronts Hazel with many of the comments and questions that have been plaguing the reader, like when she asks him "what do you do these things for?" or tells him "you must believe in Jesus or you wouldn’t do these foolish things." 

The narrator's wandering perspective and access to the characters' thoughts creates dramatic irony as well as a number of humorous moments. In the first chapter, for example, Mrs. Wally Bee Hitchcock says that time flies makes it seem like "you couldn’t tell if you were young or old," and Hazel thinks to himself that "he could tell her she was old if she asked him." While the tone itself isn't comical, the narrator's way of moving between the characters' thoughts has a playful effect alongside the novel's sinister events. The narrator may treat all of the characters with the same level of seriousness, but this move still reveals that many of them have unusual, fraught perspectives on the world and themselves.