Tone in Writing: Definition and Examples

Types of Tone Explained

Let’s define tone in writing

Tone is a very specific element in any artist's work but the actual meaning can easily be confused. For example, it is often conflated with mood but they are two distinct attributes. Let's define tone before we jump into some sub-topics like tone in writing, types of tone, and tone vs mood.

How To Identify Author's Tone?

Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal

If tone is how an artist feels about their subject matter, how do we determine what that is exactly? Well, let’s break down the three keys to determine tone (language, context, and irony) in Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, one of the best satire examples of all-time:

• “Infant's flesh will be in season throughout the year, but more plentiful in March, and a little before and after; for we are told by a grave author, an eminent French physician, that fish being a prolific diet, there are more children born in Roman Catholic countries about nine months after Lent, the markets will be more glutted than usual, because the number of Popish infants, is at least three to one in this kingdom, and therefore it will have one other collateral advantage, by lessening the number of Papists among us.”
  
  

Language: the language of this excerpt is exaggerated — notice words like grave, eminent, glutted, etc. 

Context: Jonathan Swift was a well-known satirist so readers knew to take his essays with a grain of salt. Swift was also an Irish priest who openly detested the British aristocracy.

Irony: Take the line, “there are more children born in Roman Catholic countries about nine months after Lent” for example. This line is ironic because lent is supposed to be about sacrifice, not about conceiving children.

Taking all of this into account, what would you say the tone of A Modest Proposal is? I’d say that considering language, context and irony, the tone of A Modest Proposal is satirical; a brutal condemnation of the voice Swift assumes.

What is the Tone of a Story?

Tone vs Mood

Mood and tone are two terms that are often used interchangeably — but they don’t mean the same thing. There’s definitely some conjecture as to the applicable definitions of mood and tone but perhaps it’s helpful to think about this way:

Mood is what you feel from consuming a piece of art.

Tone is what the artist feels about the subject matter of their art.

Can you see how the mood definition and tone definition could lead down a slippery slope? There’s a whole lot of subjectivity in personal feeling and a whole lot of presumption in suggesting how an artist feels about their work.

Kafka’s The Trial & The Metamorphosis

In Kafka’s best works, like The Trial and The Metamorphosis, the mood is confusing, isolating, and despairing.

Take this excerpt from The Trial for example:

• “The square in front of the cathedral was quite empty, K. remembered how even as a small child he had noticed that nearly all the houses in this narrow square had the curtains at their windows closed most of the time, although today, with the weather like this, it was more understandable.”
  
  

Notice how empty everything feels? How depressing the imagery is? Those are hallmark characteristics of Kafka’s writing. Kafka often expressed a distaste for bureaucracy, which he tried to make others feel through mood.

So, let’s diagnose the mood and tone in The Trial.

Mood: bewilderment and powerlessness

Tone: indictment of bureaucracy

Tone Definition Literature

Tone examples in literature

Critics have to be careful with diagnosing literary tone because it’s often unfair to suggest an author feels a certain way about their subject matter. We often hear “so-and-so suggests ‘blank’ in their novel” but how do we know that’s how they really feel? 

Julius Caesar

Writers can employ literary techniques to communicate tone. For example, William Shakespeare deftly used sarcasm – a form of verbal irony meant to ridicule another person – in his play Julius Caesar. Here, Mark Antony gives a speech that seems to celebrate Brutus’s honor; however, we can infer that he is being sarcastic through his choice of words and use of contradictory evidence.

• “Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
   He was my friend, faithful and just to me,
   But Brutus says he was ambitious,
   And Brutus is an honorable man.
   He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
   Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.
   Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
   When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;
   Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
   Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
   And Brutus is an honorable man.”
   – William Shakespeare
  
  

Antony says one thing but means another. He says that Brutus was an honorable man who justly killed an “ambitious” Caesar, yet reminds the Roman people that Caesar was dedicated to improving the plight of the poor and captive. Through this, he means that Brutus was ironically the ambitious man, while Caesar was the honorable man. Of course, this dichotomy can be played up when spoken aloud, making the sarcasm easier to identify. 

Fox In Socks

Writers can also utilize literary techniques to communicate poetic and or playful tones. In this example from Fox in Socks, Dr. Seuss uses alliteration: which is when two or more words are linked by a consonant sound, and assonance: which is when two or more words are linked by vowels. Try to read the tongue-twister three times fast!

• “Through three cheese trees three free fleas flew. While these fleas flew, freezy breeze blew. Freezy breeze made these three trees freeze. Freezy trees made these trees’ cheese freeze. That’s what made these three free fleas sneeze.” – Dr. Seuss

Here, Dr. Seuss uses alliteration and assonance to communicate a fun tone. However, writers can also use the same techniques to communicate serious tones as well.

The Raven

In “The Raven,” Edgar Allan Poe uses alliteration and assonance (in concert with rhyme) to create a terrifying tableau. 

• “Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, 
  Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; 
  But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, 
  And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
  This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!” — 
  Merely this and nothing more.”
  – Edgar Allan Poe

Tone is easiest to infer when writers use proven literary techniques. When in doubt, look to the masters: William Shakespeare, Dr. Seuss, and Edgar Allan Poe (just to name a few).

What’s the Tone of a Story in a Movie?

Tone examples in cinema

Remember how we talked about how there are multiple interpretations of the term tone? Well, in cinema there are three interpretations that apply — how a filmmaker feels about the subject matter of their film, the visual tone of the film itself, and audio tones.

Federico Felini's 8 ½

First, let’s look at how Federico Fellini feels about the subject matter of his film by analyzing the opening scene of 8 ½ — a film that many consider to be one of the greatest of all-time.

What’s the mood of this scene? How does it make you feel? Claustrophobic? Overwhelmed? Paranoid? Well, considering context, it’s fair to say that Fellini felt all of those ways as well. It’s no secret that 8 ½ was a very personal movie for Fellini — even the title breaks the fourth wall because it was literally the number of films he had directed up to that point.

In a lot of Fellini’s movies, actor Marcello Mastroianni plays an idealized version of himself. So for 8 ½, we can say that the tone is pretty much what Mastroianni’s character feels.

Citizen Kane

As for visual tone, let’s consider chiaroscuro lighting in another one of the greatest films ever made, Citizen Kane.

Visual tone is the meeting of light and shadow; chiaroscuro is the technique of using light and shadow to create depth. Citizen Kane is widely credited with pioneering the use of chiaroscuro lighting in American cinema — although it was predated by the artists, playwrights and filmmakers of the German Expressionist movement and films like M and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Shepard Tone in Movies

Tone can also refer to the rising and falling of pitch in a film’s audio. For example, consider the Shepard tone in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk.

The Shepard tone is an audio illusion that tricks your brain into thinking there’s an infinite rising or falling scale. You don’t have to use the Shepard tone to change the tone of your film’s audio though – any adjustment to the octave scale will change the audio tone. 

If you’re planning on making your own film, think about all the ways you can incorporate different kinds of tone. Remember: tone and good storytelling go hand-in-hand because they both revolve around feeling. 

UP NEXT

What is Mood?

If tone is how a filmmaker feels about their work then mood is how you feel about it. In this next article, we break down everything there is to know about mood by looking at examples from Edgar Allan Poe, Michel Hazanavicius and more. By the end, you’ll know how to recognize mood and implement it in your own work.

Up Next: Mood Definition and Examples →