The tone of a story definatley affects how you read it, and how you picture the story in your mind. Both short stories "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. LeGuin have similar tones.
Ursula K. LeGuin starts off her story with an uplifting kind of "feel good" tone. She makes the town of Omelas sound like a utopia. She gives a very clear description through out the story by using vivid details, and color. As the story come to an end, the tone switches to a more mellow mood as she eases you to a more depressing ending. At the very end of the story, even though the tone is still a bit up setting, she leaves us with what would be "the right thing to do" in Omelas when everyone else feels like they can not do anything for the child.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's short story "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World", starts off very creepily when they discover kids playing with a dead corpse on the beach. As the story continues, you see a similar tone as LeGuin's story which is a feel good tone as they are decribing the town. You also feel like the people of the village are a bit naive. When they discover the man, just because he is "bigger", he is considered extremley different, pure perfection.
Both stories portray a lot of imagination, and description which makes the stories eaiser to read and more enjoyable.
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Can you give an example of the vivid details? What kind of utopia does she create? What child are you discussing? Instead of mellow, go with simply depressing. Nothing is mellow about a decrepit abused child in a broom closet who sometimes gets tossed a crumb.
ReplyDeleteWhile you may think those children playing on the dead body is creepy, does the tone of the story reflect creepiness? Or does it treat the event as an ordinary experience?
I agree with your post. The tones are similar. In Marquez's story the dead body is very creep, but after a while the citizens actually praise the body and look at it as something beautiful.(Which is very odd to me.)
ReplyDeleteIn LeGuin's story I was pretty mad how she started the story so happy and then she spoke about that poor boy being tortured in the closet.
Anyway have a great break!