Style Analysis

Diction, Imagery, Tone

  1. What does TONE mean? (Define in your own words, look it up in the dictionary, or ask a classmate)
  1. What does tone of voice mean?
  1. List 5 words that could describe a person’s tone of voice. EX: Angry
  1. Authors convey feelings through the pieces they write in the same way that people convey feelings through tone of voice. Authors, though, must rely only on the printed word and cannot use inflection, volume, or gestures to make their point.

Here is an example of a sentence that conveys an arrogant tone:

John surveyed his classmates, congratulating himself for snatching the highest

grade without studying at all, unlike all the other dolts in the class.

Without specifically saying John was arrogant, the writer has conveyed this idea. “Surveying,” “snatching,” and “dolts” carry out this feeling.

  1. Choose one of the words from your tone/attitude list and write a sentence on any topic that by itself (without using the tone word) gives the feeling of the tone you chose.

Tone word ______

Sentence:

______

The words DICTION and figurative language are terms that you will use interchangeably when you analyze an author’s style. These words all refer to the concept of an author’s style. These words all refer to the concept of an author’s WORD CHOICE.

Word choice is probably the most powerful element of style for you to understand. If the directions in the prompts do not give you any specific terms to start your analysis, always begin with diction—you won’t go wrong. Many words in our language have strong connotations, and authors learn to use them on purpose to elicit certain responses from the reader.

These terms are also used when the areas to analyze include many metaphors, similes and other forms of figurative language. Watch for these as some common forms of word choice.

7. The word DENOTATION means the literal, dictionary definition of a word.

Example: The words “plump” and “obese” both literally describe a person who is overweight. This is the dictionary definition of both words. It is the shared meaning of these two synonyms.

  1. The word CONNOTATION means the implied or suggested meaning attached to a word, or the emotional “tag” that goes along with a word.

Example: The word “plump” has the connotation of being pleasantly fat, almost cutely overweight. Its connotation describes women more often than men. It is this extra “emotional” feeling that shows how we use the word. The word “obese” is often used by medical personnel and has a more technical connotation. It carries a less emotional, more scientific tag.

Connotation is important because it show difference between synonyms and suggest specific ways in which we use a word. You must understand connotations of the words you read and write in order to analyze style well.

9. The term IMAGERY is used to describe concrete words or phrases that include information perceived through the five senses (sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell). Examples of imagery do not convey connotation on the basis of vocabulary as diction does. Instead, the feeling or emotion is expressed through the picture that is created.

Example:

Diction—emaciated

Imagery—the bones protruded through the translucent skin

  1. Style analysis is only a tool to achieve another goal—to identify tone. Now that you are working with an actual passage, you must extend your knowledge about tone. Whenever you read a complex passage, look for two different but complementary tones or attitudes.

To practice, read “The Rattler.” Then do a quickwrite over the two questions that follow.

The Rattler

After sunset…I walked out into the desert…Light was thinning; the scrub’s dry savory odors were sweet on the cooler air. In this, the first pleasant moment for a walk after long blazing hours, I thought I was the only thing abroad. Abruptly I stopped short.

The other lay rigid, as suddenly arrested, his body undulant; the head was not drawn back to strike, but was merely turned a little to watch what I would do. It was a rattlesnake—and knew it. I mean that where a six-foot blacksnake thick as my wrist, capable of long-range attack and armed with powerful fangs, will flee at sight of a man, the rattler felt no necessity of getting out of anybody’s path. He held his ground in calm watchfulness; he was not even rattling yet, much less was he coiled; he was waiting for me to show my intentions.

My first instinct was to let him go his way and I would go mine, and with this he would have been well content. I have never killed an animal I was not obliged to kill; the sport in taking life is a satisfaction I can’t feel. But I reflected that there were children, dogs, horses at the ranch, as well as men and women lightly shod; my duty, plainly, was to kill the snake. I went back to the ranch house, got a hoe, and returned.

The rattler had not moved; he lay there like a live wire. But he saw the hoe. Now indeed his tail twitched, the little tocsin sounded; he drew back his head and I raised my weapon. Quicker than I could strike, he shot into a dense bush and set up his rattling. He shook and shook his fair but furious signal, quite sportingly warning me that I had made an unprovoked attack, attempted to take his life, and that if I persisted he would have no choice but to take mine if he could. I listened for a minute to this little song of death. It was not ugly, though it was ominous. It said that life was dear, and would be dearly sold. And I reached into the paper-bag bush with my hoe and, hacking about, soon dragged him out of it with his back broken.

He struck passionately once more at the hoe; but a moment later his neck was broken, and he was soon dead. Technically, that is; he was still twitching, and when I picked him up by the tail, some consequent jar, some mechanical reflex made his jaws gape and snap once more—proving that a dead snake may still bite. There was blood in his mouth and poison dripping from his fangs; it was all a nasty sight, pitiful now that it was done.

I did not cut off the rattles for a trophy; I let him drop into the close green guardianship of the paper-bag bush. Then for a moment I could see him as I might have let him go, sinuous and self-respecting in departure over the twilit sands.

1) What feelings did the author have about the man’s killing the snake?

2) What effects did this passage have on you as the reader?

______

  1. What two complimentary tone words would you select for “The Rattler?”

______

  1. Go back into “The Rattler” and underline examples of DICTION and place parenthesis around examples of (IMAGERY).