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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 Old Man and the Sea has a hardened yet resigned tone. The reader enters the story after a stretch of bad luck: Santiago’s determined attitude in spite of that bad luck results in a tone of persistence and determination. However, Santiago insists throughout the novel that he is in fact unlucky; the novella's conclusion, a pyrrhic victory over the marlin that leaves Santiago without any meat to show for his catch, reaffirms the notion that Santiago is unlucky. It also cements the story's resigned tone.
The story as a whole is a Christian allegory—Santiago's hands are respectively wounded just like Jesus's stigmata, and he carries his cross-like mast as if he was Jesus bearing the cross—which adds a moral dimension to the story's tone. While Santiago might not have meat to show for his victory over the marlin, he regains Manolin as a companion in the end, and as such his suffering is not in vain. Indeed, the defeat of the marlin has a bittersweet tone regardless of the fact that the sharks steal the meat: Santiago refers to the marlin as a brother and admires the fish for much of the battle, especially towards the end. Sharks notwithstanding, Santiago makes it explicit that his victory over the marlin is not a grand or heroic one: as he explains, the marlin is "more noble and more able" than Santiago himself.
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