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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 “Sonny’s Blues” is primarily melancholic. The story is told from the point of view of a man who has lost both parents, as well as his young daughter (who recently died from polio at the age of two). In addition to grieving the loss of these important people from his life, he has also been grieving the fact that his brother Sonny has been in and out of prison for years due to a heroin addiction. Though the narrator eventually takes Sonny in when he is released from prison, he does not have much hope about his brother’s recovery and worries about him constantly.
It is only at the end of the story, as the narrator listens to Sonny play jazz piano at a nightclub, that his burdened and mournful tone shifts slightly, as seen in the following passage:
I saw my mother’s face again, and felt, for the first time, how the stones of the road she had walked on must have bruised her feet. I saw the moonlit road where my father’s brother died. And it brought something else back to me, and carried me past it, I saw my little girl again and felt Isabel’s tears again, and I felt my own tears begin to rise.
Here the narrator is transported by Sonny’s music and seems to enter a sort of altered state in which he no longer longs for everyone he has lost but is able to be with them—he sees his mother’s face, the road where his uncle died, and his daughter who recently died. This moment is significant as it communicates that healing is possible in a person—as well as in a family—if they are willing to face their pain directly instead of trying to control it or running from it, as the narrator has done for most of his life.
Related Themes:
