Unit 6 · Topic 6.4

6.4 Tone, syntax and what a narrator leaves out

A narrator's tone, their attitude toward characters and events, shapes how you see those things. So does the way sentences are built: what goes in the main clause, what gets tucked into a side clause, and what comes last. What a narrator includes, and what they skip, also reveals their perspective.

Key terms

tone
syntax
clause
emphasis
omission
perspective

Tone comes from choices

Tone is the narrator's or speaker's attitude. You find it in word choice (diction), in which details get attention, and in sentence structure. Name tones precisely: "ironic," "admiring," "detached," "mocking," "tender." Words like "happy" or "negative" are too vague to earn credit.

A narrator can also have a mixed tone, like amused but sympathetic. Mixed tones are common in good fiction and worth naming.

Syntax: how sentence structure creates emphasis

Syntax means the arrangement of words and clauses in a sentence. A clause is a group of words with a subject and a verb. An independent (main) clause can stand alone; a dependent clause can't. Writers use syntax to decide what you notice most.

Choice	What it does
Main clause vs. dependent clause	The main clause carries the main point; a dependent clause gives background, conditions or concessions
End position	Words at the end of a sentence tend to get the most weight
Periodic sentence	Delays the main point until the end, building suspense
Short sentence after long ones	Lands hard, like a punch line or a blunt fact
Lists and repetition	Pile up details to show excess, routine or overwhelming feeling

Jane Austen's opening: tone through syntax

Pride and Prejudice (1813) opens: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

The first half sounds like a philosopher announcing a universal law. The second half delivers small-town matchmaking gossip. The gap between the grand style and the petty claim creates irony: the narrator doesn't believe this "truth" at all. What is really true, as the next sentence shows, is that the neighbors want the rich man for their daughters.

The second sentence makes this clear through its structure. It opens with a dependent clause, "However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be," and only then gets to its main point: the neighbors consider him "the rightful property" of one of their daughters. The man's feelings get pushed into the side clause, which mirrors how little the neighbors care about them. The phrase about property, landing at the end, turns the usual idea of marriage upside down.

What a narrator leaves out

Every narrator selects. Notice what they skip, rush past or refuse to describe. Austen's narrator gives no names in those first sentences because the neighbors see a fortune, not a person. A narrator who describes a party in detail but sums up a death in one sentence is telling you something about their values or about the community's.

Worked examples

Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.

Example 1
Analyzing a sentence's structure
Explain how the structure of this sentence from the second paragraph of Pride and Prejudice creates the narrator's ironic tone: "However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters."
Show the solutionHide the solution
1. Step 1: Find the main clause: "this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families." The main point is about the families' fixed belief, not about the man.
2. Step 2: Find what's pushed aside: the man's "feelings or views" sit in an opening dependent clause, admitted and then ignored.
3. Step 3: Look at the end: "rightful property" lands last, so it hits hardest. In Austen's time the law gave a husband control of his wife's property; here the rich man is the one treated as property.
4. Step 4: Connect structure to tone: the sentence gives the families' view in a calm, formal voice, but the arrangement exposes how silly and grasping that view is. That is irony.
Answer: Sample answer: Austen tucks the man's "feelings or views" into a dependent clause at the start and moves straight past them, just as the neighbors do. The main clause stresses how "fixed" the families' belief is, and the sentence ends on "the rightful property," a legal phrase that treats the wealthy bachelor as a prize to be claimed. Because the narrator states all this in a polite, serious voice, the structure itself does the mocking: we laugh at the families without the narrator ever openly criticizing them.

Common mistakes

Labeling a sentence type ("this is a periodic sentence") without explaining its effect on meaning or tone.
Using vague tone words like "positive" or "emotional." Choose a precise word and point to the words that create it.
Assuming the narrator means exactly what they say. Check for irony when the style and the content don't match.

On the exam

Expect multiple-choice questions on how a sentence's structure creates emphasis, or which word best describes the narrator's attitude. When a passage mixes feelings, look for a tone answer that captures both sides (like "wry and affectionate"), and check each word against the passage.
In the prose essay, one well-analyzed sentence often earns more than a list of devices. Quote it, show how it's built, and connect the structure to the passage's meaning.

Connected topics

Videos

How to Analyze SYNTAX in LITERATURE
Garden of EnglishWatch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)
"What is Tone in Literature?": A Literary Guide for English Students and Teachers
OSU School of Writing, Literature and FilmWatch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)
Analyzing tone through word choice | Reading | Khan Academy
Khan AcademyWatch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)
AP English Language: Writing About Syntax
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How to Determine a Writer's Tone
TolentinoTeaching (Resources for English Teachers)Watch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Check yourself

4 questions on 6.4 Tone, syntax and what a narrator leaves out. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.

The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.

The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth.

The Director of Companies was our captain and our host. We four affectionately watched his back as he stood in the bows looking to seaward. On the whole river there was nothing that looked half so nautical. He resembled a pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified. It was difficult to realize his work was not out there in the luminous estuary, but behind him, within the brooding gloom.

The sun set; the dusk fell on the stream, and lights began to appear along the shore. The Chapman light-house, a three-legged thing erect on a mud-flat, shone strongly. Lights of ships moved in the fairway—a great stir of lights going up and going down. And farther west on the upper reaches the place of the monstrous town was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars.

“And this also,” said Marlow suddenly, “has been one of the dark places of the earth.”

He was the only man of us who still “followed the sea.” The worst that could be said of him was that he did not represent his class. He was a seaman, but he was a wanderer, too, while most seamen lead, if one may so express it, a sedentary life. Their minds are of the stay-at-home order, and their home is always with them—the ship; and so is their country—the sea. One ship is very much like another, and the sea is always the same. In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign shores, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance; for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny. For the rest, after his hours of work, a casual stroll or a casual spree on shore suffices to unfold for him the secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the secret not worth knowing. The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine.

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899; in book form 1902), the opening. Two excerpts: three paragraphs describing the sunset and the river’s history are left out between paragraphs 3 and 4.

Question 1 of 4

In paragraph 6, the narrator’s comment that for most seamen “a casual spree on shore suffices to unfold for him the secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the secret not worth knowing” conveys

1801—I have just returned from a visit to my landlord—the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist’s Heaven—and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow! He little imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name.

“Mr. Heathcliff?” I said.

A nod was the answer.

“Mr. Lockwood, your new tenant, sir. I do myself the honour of calling as soon as possible after my arrival, to express the hope that I have not inconvenienced you by my perseverance in soliciting the occupation of Thrushcross Grange: I heard yesterday you had had some thoughts—”

“Thrushcross Grange is my own, sir,” he interrupted, wincing. “I should not allow any one to inconvenience me, if I could hinder it—walk in!”

The “walk in” was uttered with closed teeth, and expressed the sentiment, “Go to the Deuce!” even the gate over which he leant manifested no sympathising movement to the words; and I think that circumstance determined me to accept the invitation: I felt interested in a man who seemed more exaggeratedly reserved than myself.

The apartment and furniture would have been nothing extraordinary as belonging to a homely, northern farmer, with a stubborn countenance, and stalwart limbs set out to advantage in knee-breeches and gaiters. Such an individual seated in his arm-chair, his mug of ale frothing on the round table before him, is to be seen in any circuit of five or six miles among these hills, if you go at the right time after dinner. But Mr. Heathcliff forms a singular contrast to his abode and style of living. He is a dark-skinned gipsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman: that is, as much a gentleman as many a country squire: rather slovenly, perhaps, yet not looking amiss with his negligence, because he has an erect and handsome figure; and rather morose. Possibly, some people might suspect him of a degree of under-bred pride; I have a sympathetic chord within that tells me it is nothing of the sort: I know, by instinct, his reserve springs from an aversion to showy displays of feeling—to manifestations of mutual kindliness. He’ll love and hate equally under cover, and esteem it a species of impertinence to be loved or hated again. No, I’m running on too fast: I bestow my own attributes over-liberally on him. Mr. Heathcliff may have entirely dissimilar reasons for keeping his hand out of the way when he meets a would-be acquaintance, to those which actuate me. Let me hope my constitution is almost peculiar: my dear mother used to say I should never have a comfortable home; and only last summer I proved myself perfectly unworthy of one.

While enjoying a month of fine weather at the sea-coast, I was thrown into the company of a most fascinating creature: a real goddess in my eyes, as long as she took no notice of me. I “never told my love” vocally; still, if looks have language, the merest idiot might have guessed I was over head and ears: she understood me at last, and looked a return—the sweetest of all imaginable looks. And what did I do? I confess it with shame—shrunk icily into myself, like a snail; at every glance retired colder and farther; till finally the poor innocent was led to doubt her own senses, and, overwhelmed with confusion at her supposed mistake, persuaded her mamma to decamp.

By this curious turn of disposition I have gained the reputation of deliberate heartlessness; how undeserved, I alone can appreciate.

Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, Chapter 1 (1847). Two excerpts: a description of the house is left out between paragraphs 6 and 7. Mr. Lockwood, a newcomer renting a nearby house from Mr. Heathcliff, is the narrator.

Question 2 of 4

Lockwood’s phrase “A perfect misanthropist’s Heaven” (paragraph 1) conveys

A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door, kept repeating over and over:

“Allez vous-en! Allez vous-en! Sapristi! That’s all right!”

He could speak a little Spanish, and also a language which nobody understood, unless it was the mocking-bird that hung on the other side of the door, whistling his fluty notes out upon the breeze with maddening persistence.

Mr. Pontellier, unable to read his newspaper with any degree of comfort, arose with an expression and an exclamation of disgust.

He walked down the gallery and across the narrow “bridges” which connected the Lebrun cottages one with the other. He had been seated before the door of the main house. The parrot and the mocking-bird were the property of Madame Lebrun, and they had the right to make all the noise they wished. Mr. Pontellier had the privilege of quitting their society when they ceased to be entertaining.

He stopped before the door of his own cottage, which was the fourth one from the main building and next to the last. Seating himself in a wicker rocker which was there, he once more applied himself to the task of reading the newspaper. The day was Sunday; the paper was a day old. The Sunday papers had not yet reached Grand Isle. He was already acquainted with the market reports, and he glanced restlessly over the editorials and bits of news which he had not had time to read before quitting New Orleans the day before.

Mr. Pontellier wore eye-glasses. He was a man of forty, of medium height and rather slender build; he stooped a little. His hair was brown and straight, parted on one side. His beard was neatly and closely trimmed.

Mr. Pontellier finally lit a cigar and began to smoke, letting the paper drag idly from his hand. He fixed his gaze upon a white sunshade that was advancing at snail’s pace from the beach. He could see it plainly between the gaunt trunks of the water-oaks and across the stretch of yellow camomile. The gulf looked far away, melting hazily into the blue of the horizon. The sunshade continued to approach slowly. Beneath its pink-lined shelter were his wife, Mrs. Pontellier, and young Robert Lebrun. When they reached the cottage, the two seated themselves with some appearance of fatigue upon the upper step of the porch, facing each other, each leaning against a supporting post.

“What folly! to bathe at such an hour in such heat!” exclaimed Mr. Pontellier. He himself had taken a plunge at daylight. That was why the morning seemed long to him.

“You are burnt beyond recognition,” he added, looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage. She held up her hands, strong, shapely hands, and surveyed them critically, drawing up her fawn sleeves above the wrists. Looking at them reminded her of her rings, which she had given to her husband before leaving for the beach. She silently reached out to him, and he, understanding, took the rings from his vest pocket and dropped them into her open palm. She slipped them upon her fingers; then clasping her knees, she looked across at Robert and began to laugh. The rings sparkled upon her fingers. He sent back an answering smile.

“What is it?” asked Pontellier, looking lazily and amused from one to the other. It was some utter nonsense; some adventure out there in the water, and they both tried to relate it at once. It did not seem half so amusing when told. They realized this, and so did Mr. Pontellier. He yawned and stretched himself. Then he got up, saying he had half a mind to go over to Klein’s hotel and play a game of billiards.

“Come go along, Lebrun,” he proposed to Robert. But Robert admitted quite frankly that he preferred to stay where he was and talk to Mrs. Pontellier.

“Well, send him about his business when he bores you, Edna,” instructed her husband as he prepared to leave.

“Here, take the umbrella,” she exclaimed, holding it out to him. He accepted the sunshade, and lifting it over his head descended the steps and walked away.

Kate Chopin, The Awakening, Chapter I (1899). Two excerpts: one paragraph describing other guests at the resort is left out between paragraphs 7 and 8.

Question 3 of 4

In paragraph 10, Mr. Pontellier looks at his wife “as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage.” The comparison chiefly reveals

Question 4 of 4

The narrator’s remark that the birds “had the right to make all the noise they wished” while “Mr. Pontellier had the privilege of quitting their society when they ceased to be entertaining” (paragraph 5) is best described as

0 of 4 answered