Compare passages for tone
Key notes:
Tone is the attitude that is expressed in a text. A writer’s tone can communicate a range of feelings, such as excitement, humour, doubt or respect.
Tone is revealed through the language that a writer uses in a text. For example, is the information presented through direct statements or through figurative language? Is the topic described through positive words and phrases or through negative ones? These types of text features can help express different tones.
- I shivered as I watched the bitter wind whip through the grey, sickly trees outside.
- Words like ‘bitter’, ‘grey’ and ‘sickly’ create a mournful, depressed tone.
- With a triumphant fist in the air, the runner dashed across the finish line to victory.
- Words like ‘triumphant’, ‘dashed’ and ‘victory’ create an upbeat, energetic tone.
Learn with an example
🔥Select the passage that has a more contented tone.
Peace has forever departed from my stomach. I am an officer now; but how I wish I could snatch a bit of oldfashioned beef from the upper deck, as I used to when I was a common sailor. There are the fruits of promotion now; there’s the vanity of glory: there’s the insanity of life!
In calling myself a Goose Girl, I am using only the most modest of my titles; I am also a poultrymaid, a tender of rabbits, and a shepherdess. But I particularly enjoy the role of Goose Girl, because it recalls the fairy tales of my youth, when I always yearned to be precisely what I am now.
Adapted from Herman Melville, Moby Dick and Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin, The Diary of a Goose Girl
The second passage is more contented in tone. The speaker’s satisfaction in being precisely what I am now and phrases like particularly enjoy suggest a positive tone. The other passage conveys a tone of longing and regret with phrases like how I wish I could and as I used to and the sarcastic There are the fruits of promotion.
🔥Select the passage that has a more sombre tone.
On a melancholy day in autumn, when the shadows of morning and evening throw a gloom over the decline of the year, I passed several hours in rambling about Westminster Abbey. As I passed its threshold, it seemed like stepping back in time and losing myself among the shades of former ages.
Bright sunshine fell upon the old red sandstone of which the later part of the old Abbey Farmery is built, and cast a glare on the snow-covered roof. The day was deliciously crisp, clear and invigorating, and Bess laughed and snowballed me and the dogs, and so we wandered away inside.
Adapted from Washington Irving, The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon and Lady C. Milnes Gaskell, Spring in a Shropshire Abbey
The first passage is more sombre in tone. Phrases like melancholy day, throw a gloom over the decline and shades of former ages suggest a gloomy, solemn attitude. The other passage uses positive language, such as bright sunshine and deliciously crisp, clear and invigorating.
🔥Select the passage that has a more interrogating tone.
Rose Maylie had rapidly grown worse; before midnight she was delirious. A medical practitioner pronounced her disorder to be one of a most alarming nature. Oh! the suspense, the fearful, acute suspense, of standing idly by while the life of one we dearly love, is trembling in the balance!
Then there was the peculiar dying reference to a rat. What could that mean? It could not be delirium. A man dying from a sudden blow does not commonly become delirious. No, it was more likely to be an attempt to explain how he met his fate. But what could it indicate?
Adapted from Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist and Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The second passage is more interrogating in tone. Questions such as What could that mean? and But what could it indicate?, and phrases like peculiar dying reference, It could not be, and find some possible explanation set a tone of scepticism. The other passage uses words like alarming, suspense, fearful and trembling to convey an anxious tone.
let’s practice!
Select the passage that has a more dejected tone.
How often did Oliver sneak from his bed that night to listen for the slightest sound from the sick chamber! How often did a tremble shake his frame and cold drops of terror start upon his brow, when sudden footsteps caused him to fear that something too dreadful to think of had happened!
He began feeling very miserable. She was ill. What if she should die! There was distraction in the thought. He no longer took an interest in anything. The charm of life was gone; there was nothing but dreariness left. He put his hoop away, and his bat; there was no joy in them anymore.
Adapted from Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist and Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Results
#1. Select the passage that has a more dejected tone.
Select the passage that has a more disdainful tone.
It was a girl, and the four English children—carefully dressed in frocks, hats, shoes, stockings, coats, collars, and all the rest of it—envied her more than any words of theirs or of mine could possibly say. There was no doubt that hers was the right outfit for that climate.
There is a happy smile on his insignificant face, and this presumably means that he is thinking of himself. He is too busy doing nothing to be always thinking of himself, but, on the other hand, he almost never thinks of any other person.
Adapted from E. Nesbit, The Story of the Amulet and J. M. Barrie, The Admirable Crichton
Results
#1. Select the passage that has a more disdainful tone.
Select the passage that has a more bitter tone.
There had been in his past actions—recognised by him as bad—for which his conscience ought to have tormented him. But the memory of these evil actions was far from causing him as much suffering as those trivial but humiliating memories. These wounds never healed.
You remember that morning, once a year, when the lilacs had just turned purple out by the front gate, and flags hanging out on the porches—Decoration Day! How we used to hunt through the freshly awakened woods north of town for the rarest wildflowers!
Adapted from Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina and Oney Fred Sweet, ‘That Iowa Town’
Results
#1. Select the passage that has a more bitter tone.
Select the passage that has a more conversational tone.
The fingers are drumming, twitching, twirling, doing a multitude of motions that mean what? Nothing, do you say? Oh! No, indeed; not nothing but something. Fingers and hands which perform all these unnecessary motions are acting as a result of thoughtlessness. Every one does it, do you say? No, that is not true.
The special importance of the sense of hearing comes from the fact that it is the sense connected with speech. Therefore, to train the child’s attention to follow sounds and noises that are produced in the environment is to prepare his attention to follow the sounds of clear language more accurately.
Adapted from Thomas Tapper, Music Talks with Children and Maria Montessori, Dr. Montessori’s Own Handbook
Results
#1. Select the passage that has a more conversational tone.
Select the passage that has a more concerned tone.
Then I could hear a policeman giving orders, but I did not even open my eyes; I could only draw a breath now and then. I cannot tell how long I lay there, but I found my life coming back, and a kind-voiced man was patting me and encouraging me to rise.
I gasped for breath—and yet the officers heard it not. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men—but the noise steadily increased. Oh, God! What could I do?
Adapted from Anna Sewell, Black Beauty and Edgar Allen Poe, ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’
Results