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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 “There Will Come Soft Rains” is slightly oppressive and enigmatic. The story is told by an unknown, third-person narrator who depicts the goings-on at the McClellans' household.
The introduction is unsurprising in its ordinariness; in its casual recounting of the “voice-clock” and hissing breakfast stove, the narrator seems to capture a regular morning and hardly offers any clues to the contrary. In fact, the reader does not fully realize that all the humans have died until mention of the city’s “rubble and ashes.” The McClellans’ house is the “one house left standing,” the narrator belatedly tells us, after the eggs have shriveled and the toast has hardened to stone.
The story’s selective and subtle omissions are a source of the reader’s growing uneasiness. “There Will Come Soft Rains” withholds crucial details from the reader to unsettling effect, partly inviting us to challenge its own narrative authority. Uncomfortable truths—such as the dead McClellans or the destroyed city—are implied rather than explained outright. The narrator’s cryptic references to the “radioactive glow” and the “one titanic instant” dance around nuclear destruction, leaving the reader to guess at the precise circumstances. By choosing to leave certain things unsaid, the narrator creates momentous absences that weigh uneasily on the reader.
Sustaining this sense of mystery is the narrator’s undisclosed identity. In this nuclear wasteland, the narrator seems neither human nor animal, and its eerie sentience seems as off-putting as that of the McClellans' own house. Our narrator lingers over Allendale with god-like detachment and ultimately raises more questions than answers. Who is this presence? Why is it sharing this story with us? “There Will Come Soft Rains” creates unexplained gaps and haunts us through that which we don’t know.
