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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:
At the beginning of “The Man of the Crowd,” the tone is cheerful, inquisitive, and confident. Having recently gotten over an illness, the narrator explains that he is feeling more clear-headed and engaged with the world than he has for some time:
For some months I had been ill in health, but was now convalescent, and, with returning strength, found myself in one of those happy moods which are so precisely the converse of ennui—moods of the keenest appetency, when the film of the mental vision departs […]. Merely to breathe was enjoyment; and I derived positive pleasure even from many of the legitimate sources of pain. I felt a calm but inquisitive interest in every thing.
In this upbeat state of mind, the narrator watches the crowd pass by the window of the café he is sitting at, fascinated by the variety of people that can be seen walking down a crowded city street and making guesses about their occupations and personalities based on their outfits and mannerisms. The narrator sits calmly sorting people into “types” based on their appearances. He entertains himself with this until the sun sets.
The narrator’s tone is also highly intellectual throughout the story. “The Man of the Crowd” is a story dense with allusions to works of art, literature, and philosophy—the story begins with references to French and German literature, and the narrator compares his mental state to the theories of German and Ancient Greek philosophers, finds analogies between the women he sees and famous statues, and compares the old man to an image of the devil he has seen in the work of German artist Moritz Retzsch. All that the narrator sees is filtered through a lens of art and culture. The effect of this is twofold: first, it establishes the narrator as an educated person from an upper-class or possibly aristocratic background; and second, it puts the narrator at a remove from things around him. He sees himself as above and apart from the crowd he is so fascinated by, while he describes the old man, on the other hand, as refusing to be alone and being a “man of the crowd.” What the narrator fails to see is that he and the old man are actually quite similar, and that the narrator—by obsessing over the clothing and mannerisms of the crowd—is feeding off of its energy in much the same way as the old man.
As night falls over the city, the narrator’s removed, intellectual interest in his surroundings deepens into something more obsessive and frantic. He feels “enchained” to his examination of the crowd and describes himself as being in a “peculiar mental state,” suggesting that he cannot stop himself from watching the crowd and, later, pursuing the old man through the night. Despite the narrator’s increasingly bizarre and frenzied behavior, he maintains a tone of calm self-assurance, perhaps to convince both himself and the reader that he, unlike the old man, is acting rationally.
Related Themes:
