Lesson 1.8 · Unit 1 · RL.9-10.4
How word choice does the work
Two writers can report the same event and produce opposite effects, and the difference is usually in the words. This lesson separates three terms that are constantly confused and shows how to write about them precisely.
- Diction is word choice, and it can be formal or informal, concrete or abstract, plain or elevated, and technical or common.
- Denotation is a word's dictionary meaning; connotation is what it suggests, so "thrifty" and "stingy" denote nearly the same behavior and connote opposite judgments.
- Tone is the writer's or speaker's attitude toward the subject: amused, bitter, reverent, detached, anxious.
- Mood is the feeling produced in the reader, and tone and mood can differ, as when a detached tone produces an uneasy mood.
- Syntax contributes too: short sentences produce urgency, long ones produce reflection or breathlessness depending on how they are built.
- Tone is named with an adjective, so a strong answer offers a precise one rather than "negative" or "sad".
- Tone can shift within a text, and locating the shift is usually the most productive observation available.
- Evidence for tone is specific words, so the method is always to quote the diction and then name the attitude it carries.
Where students lose marks: naming a tone without quoting the words that produce it. Any tone can be asserted; only a quoted one can be assessed.
The text. Edgar Allan Poe, "The Cask of Amontillado", 1846. Public domain.
I had told them that I should not return until the morning, and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure their immediate disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back was turned.
There remained but a little; a single stone was to be fitted and plastered in. I struggled with its weight; I placed it partially in its destined position. But now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I had difficulty in recognizing as that of the noble Fortunato.
Step one: examine the diction of the first passage. "Explicit orders", "sufficient", "insure", "one and all". Formal, controlled, almost administrative. A man describing the logistics of a murder in the register of a household memorandum.
Step two: name the tone it produces. Not "evil" or "dark", which are judgments rather than attitudes. The tone is complacent: he is pleased with his own cleverness about servants and expects the reader to admire the arrangement.
Step three: name the mood. The mood is chilling, and notice that it differs from the tone. A complacent account of arranging an empty house produces unease in the reader precisely because the speaker feels none. Tone and mood are running in opposite directions.
Step four: examine the syntax of the second passage. "There remained but a little; a single stone was to be fitted and plastered in. I struggled with its weight; I placed it partially in its destined position." Short, clipped, semicolons. The rhythm is a man working steadily and reporting each step.
Step five: locate the shift. "But now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon my head." The sentence is longer, the syntax inverted, and for the first time in the story the narrator records a physical reaction he did not choose. The control breaks here.
Step six: name what the shift reveals. Up to this point he has presented himself as entirely composed. One laugh produces a bodily response he cannot narrate away, which tells the reader that his composure was maintained rather than felt. The tone shift is the characterization.
Step seven: examine one word closely. "The noble Fortunato." He calls the man he is walling up noble, in the sentence where he hears him laugh. The word's connotation is respect and admiration, and it arrives at the least respectful moment imaginable, which is verbal irony carried by a single adjective.
Step eight: state the method. Quote the words, describe what they connote, name the attitude with a precise adjective, and then say what the reader feels. Following that sequence produces a defensible account of tone, and skipping to the adjective produces an assertion nobody can check.
Questions 1 to 5 are recall. Questions 6 to 10 ask for reasoning.
- Define diction.
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Word choice, which may be formal or informal, concrete or abstract, plain or elevated
- Distinguish denotation from connotation.
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Denotation is dictionary meaning; connotation is what a word suggests
- Distinguish tone from mood.
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Tone is the speaker's attitude to the subject; mood is the feeling produced in the reader
- How does syntax contribute?
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Short sentences produce urgency; long ones produce reflection or breathlessness depending on construction
- How should a tone be named?
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With a precise adjective, supported by quoted words
- Name the tone of the first passage and quote the diction that produces it.
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The tone is complacent. "Explicit orders", "sufficient", "insure", "one and all" are formal and almost administrative, the register of a household memorandum, and Montresor is evidently pleased with his own cleverness in predicting that the servants would leave. "Evil" or "dark" would be judgments of the man rather than descriptions of his attitude, and the attitude is self-satisfaction at a well-managed arrangement. Complacent, from the administrative register of "explicit orders" and "sufficient"
- Explain how the tone and mood differ here.
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The tone is complacent and the mood is chilling, and they run in opposite directions. A man describing the arrangements for emptying his house speaks with satisfaction, and the reader's unease comes precisely from the fact that the speaker feels none. If Montresor were agitated the reader would feel less, because the horror lies in the mismatch between the calm of the telling and the content of what is being told. A complacent tone produces a chilling mood exactly because the speaker feels nothing
- Locate the tonal shift in the second passage and explain what produces it.
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The shift comes at "But now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon my head." Up to that point the syntax is short and clipped, with semicolons marking each completed step of the work. This sentence is longer, its syntax is inverted, and it records a physical reaction the narrator did not choose. The rhythm of steady labor breaks in a single line. At the laugh, where clipped working syntax gives way to an inverted longer sentence
- What does the shift reveal about the narrator?
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That his composure was maintained rather than felt. Throughout the story he presents himself as entirely in command of his own reactions, and one laugh produces a bodily response he cannot narrate away or explain. A man genuinely untroubled by what he is doing would not have his hair stand on end. The tonal shift is therefore the characterization, doing work no stated trait could do. His composure was performed, since one laugh produces a reaction he cannot control
- Analyze the word "noble" in this context.
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Its connotation is respect, admiration and high standing, and Montresor applies it to a man he is currently walling into a niche, in the very sentence where he reports hearing him laugh. The gap between what the word suggests and what the situation is produces verbal irony carried by one adjective. It may also be habit: he has called Fortunato flattering things all evening, and the habit persists into the masonry. A word connoting respect arrives at the least respectful moment, carrying irony alone