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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
Chapters 11-12: Waking; Which Dreamed It?
Explanation and Analysis:
For all the strange things that happen in the novel, its tone is easy to follow and gentle. It uses third-person narration, but the narrator adopts Alice's perspective. Like an open-minded child, the narrator does not seem overly skeptical when describing the strange things Alice encounters in the Looking-Glass World. Rather, the narrator will simply state what Alice is seeing and react to it as she is reacting to it. For instance, when the Knights battle each other in Chapter 8, the narrator conveys the strangeness of the scene not by calling it strange, but rather by describing Alice's "anxiety" and "bewilderment." He lets Alice's feelings guide the tone, and he is nonjudgmental about her reactions.
This gentle centering of a child's perspective is inviting to young readers who are trying, like Alice, to navigate a strange and nonsensical world. The novel ends on the question of whether Alice or the Red King dreamed the Looking-Glass World into existence. This question touches on a 19th-century philosophical debate about whether reality was anything more than God's dream. Not only does Carroll empower a little girl to dream up her own world, just like God in this theory, but he also invites even his youngest readers into the debate with the final line:
Which do you think it was?
While Carroll may be engaging other adults in this debate as well, his invitation for everyone to have an opinion is a way of recognizing that children are complex people whose perspective deserves attention. Carroll's gentle and sustained acceptance of Alice and other children's emotional experiences allows him to ask what wisdom children can bring to the adult world. By adopting a much more accepting and patient tone toward children than most adults did at this time, Carroll is able to not only invite but also imagine for adult readers some of their valid critiques of Victorian behaviors and social institutions.
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