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Style
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:
Shifting from the darkly humorous to the poetic, Dickens fills Our Mutual Friend with his lively narratorial voice. He alternates between the roles of director and observer in a way that give the novel its comic and impassioned turns.
Dickens’s detached, third-person stance often provides the foundations for his dark humor. By feigning disinterest in all the characters’ absurdities, he emphasizes them. With perfect matter-of-factness, he reports on Mr. Podsnap’s preference for “getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at half-past five, and dining at seven.” He holds a straight face through Mrs. Wilfer’s “heroic endurance and heroic forgiveness,” the Veneerings’ “bran-newness,” and Mr. Venus’s “bony light.” Our Mutual Friend plays on the contrasts between Dickens’s apparent, serious acceptance and the senselessness of its characters to comic effect. The author’s faux earnestness only throws the ridiculousness of its characters in even sharper contrast.
This distanced posture occasionally wears off into more direct critique. When he is not wry or ironic, Dickens is impassioned and oratorical. He is exclamatory and dramatic, making his righteous disgust sharply felt. The novel’s criticism is wide-ranging and unsparing—Dickens speaks out against England’s social failings and his characters’ glaring flaws. The novel’s targets range from the country’s harsh Poor Laws to Silas Wegg’s ruthless greed. “See into what wonderful maudlin refuges, featherless ostriches plunge their heads!” Dickens exclaims as the wooden-legged storyteller entertains suspicions against Boffin’s Secretary. The Dickens in Our Mutual Friend negotiates between polar extremes—the railing and the reportorial—battling between scathing excess and restraint.
