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Definition of Tone
The tone of a piece of writing is its general character or attitude, which might be cheerful or depressive, sarcastic or sincere, comical or mournful, praising or critical, and so on. For instance... read full definition
The tone of a piece of writing is its general character or attitude, which might be cheerful or depressive, sarcastic or sincere, comical or mournful, praising or critical... read full definition
The tone of a piece of writing is its general character or attitude, which might be cheerful or depressive, sarcastic or sincere, comical... read full definition
Tone
Explanation and Analysis:
The tone of “Good Country People” is primarily ironic and humorous. Throughout the story, the narrator subtly mocks all of the characters for believing themselves to be superior to everyone else when, really, their shared sense of superiority is what makes them all the same. This playful and mocking tone comes across in the following passage, when Hulga is condescendingly thinking about the Bible Salesman and how she will seduce him the following day:
She imagined that the two of them walked on the place until they came to the storage barn beyond the two back fields and there, she imagined, that things came to such a pass that she very easily seduced him and that then, of course, she had to reckon with his remorse. True genius can get an idea across even to an inferior mind. She imagined that she took his remorse in hand and changed it into a deeper understanding of life. She took all his shame away and turned it into something useful.
The playful and ironic tone in this passage comes across in the way that the narrator highlights Hulga’s arrogance, as seen in descriptions like Hulga believing she could “very easily” seduce the Salesman and help him have “a deeper understanding of life” by turning his Christian shame into “something useful.” While Hulga believes that, as a “true genius,” she can “get an idea across even to an inferior mind,” O'Connor clearly does not agree. While she do not insert her voice to say as much, the fact that she is juxtaposing Hulga’s extreme self-regard with the extreme self-regard of the other characters (upon whom Hulga looks down) is her way of raising questions about who is really all that self-aware.
The deeper irony of this moment comes across later in the story when the Bible Salesman reveals that it was he who successfully seduced Hula under false pretenses and, in the process, helped her have the “deeper understanding of life” that she believed would be hers to impart.
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