Tone In Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes

The themes of the gothic and supernatural are two of the main themes in both Jane Eyre and Turn of the Screw. However, there are traits of mental illness or madness found in both protagonists in James’ and Bronte’s novels along with Bertha Mason. Both authors present these themes to the reader in a number of ways.

Liza Ward I imagine wore pearls and a sweet grin; she wrote of abiding emptiness. An image of neatly trimmed edges in navy blue with long brunette waves of classic beauty, her words echo with hollow despair and the impossibility of overcoming the past. Answering the phone for this interview, a high-pitched, girlie voice chirps “Hi, how are you?” with genuine interest. Her novel speaks from the other side, from the silence of a happy life.

The way in which her father regarded her had the greatest influence on her ensuing moods. For example, after trying to help him up onto the bed, begging him to respond and acknowledge her presence, he says only, “‘Water’”(67). Taking this as a declaration of her worthlessness, she became convinced that she “[was] an idea [her] father had many years ago and then, bored with it, forgot”(69) about. Locked in self-pity after his reply, she continued questioning the point of her being, feeling insignificant and wanting to “annihilate [herself]”(71). In fact, that he does not seem to notice her is also a contributing part of her disposition: after taking to bed with a migraine she comments, “I was not missed. My father pays no attention to my absence” (2). Her resentment of him grew to be so automatic that it envel...

...ke a person experience a 180 change. It seems as if Mary Anne Bell’s a person who’s lost her cute personality after she was just too involved with the war that was going on. It has been said that a war can truly change a person so much that they can lose all their old characteristics or better yet their appearance. This quote was used to show how Mary Anne was starting to act grim and unusual. Also, this quote showed how different she speaks to her boyfriend and the ways she even finds her joy everything was and is different. This was unusal as Mary Anne because she obviously she loves her boyfriend a lot, but the unusual things is that not only is it that her personality changes but her appearances started to change also. Mary Anne’s appearance was just different and weird because it seemed as if she was just able to adjust her living styles to a common soldiers. “

“It was a pleasure to burn” (1) is dramatic irony that Bradbury uses to show that the firemen are blind to their ruthless actions and the dysfunctional society in which they take pride living within. Bradbury uses a powerful quote that help the reader understand that, from the beginning there was darkness and vile in the firemens eyes. In reality firemen work to prevent and stop fires, feeling sorrow if they cannot achieve their mission, however Bradbury contrast the firemen in the story by showing that they take pleasure in these burnings and enjoy watching them while showing no remorse for who they effect and oblivious of their destructive morals. To continue on, Bradbury further develops the firemen by introducing Montag as cold-hearted and one who has a burning passion for destruction by using, “...To shove a marshmallow”(1) by exalting to the reader, the discomforting motives at which

Ray Bradbury’s use of diction creates tones that are critical, impulsive, and benevolent in Fahrenheit 451 when the firemen “fix” the old woman’s library. First, Bradbury’s tone is critical when he writes, “Beatty, Stoneman, and Black ran up the sidewalk, suddenly odious and fat in their plump fireproof slickers” (Bradbury 33). Montag is observing his coworkers as they are walking up to the suspected woman’s house. Bradbury is using diction to develop a critical tone when he uses adjectives like, “odious” and “fat” to show Montag finding fault in his fellow firemen. Next, the author’s tone is impulsive when Bradbury writes, “ His hand had done it all, his hand, with a mind of its own, with a conscience and a curiosity in each

“Stop gawking at yourself. Who are you? You think you’re so pretty?” ‘Where are you going, where have you been?’ is a short story about a girl named Connie. Connie is a 15 year old girl who to her mother appears vain. Her mother was once pretty and over the years lost her looks so she attacked her daughter. Connie represents the girls of society which seem to be entering womanhood. In “Where are you going, Where have you been?” Joyce Carol Oath uses literary devices to develop both the theme and tone.

Marie had just traveled from her hometown of Ville Rose, where discarding your child made you wicked, to the city of Port-Au-Prince, where children are commonly left on the street. Marie finds a child that she thinks could not be more beautiful, “I thought she was a gift from Heaven when I saw her on the dusty curb, wrapped in a small pink blanket, a few inches away from a sewer as open as a hungry child’s yawn” (79). Marie has suffered many miscarriages, so she takes this child as if it were her own, “I swayed her in my arms like she was and had always been mine” (82). Marie’s hope for a child has paid off, or so it seems. Later, it is revealed that the child is, in fact, dead, and Marie fabricated a story to sanction her hopes and distract her from the harsh reality of her life, “I knew I had to act with her because she was attracting flies and I was keeping her spirit from moving on… She smelled so bad that I couldn’t even bring myself to kiss her without choking on my breath” (85). Her life is thrown back into despair as her cheating husband accuses her of killing children for evil purposes and sends her to

The next technique the author used to create immediate and realistic depictions of the women and room. In the essay Melissa Barth pointed out that Gilman tricks the reader into seeing Jane as simultaneously mad and in the grips of some haunting supernatural specters. This ambiguity increases the shock that readers experience when they realize that Jane has been talking in metaphors throughout her narrative, that she has been recounting her own sense of intellectual and emotional oppression, rather than seeing actual women crawling about on the ground in the gardens or moving behind her room’s wallpaper. (Barth 2004) Both of these techniques required a through analysis of the book and I did not capture either technique on my initial reading of the book. Finally, Charlotte Perkin Gillman forces the reader to rethink the entire narrative with the odd

“Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed”, by Ray Bradbury, Harry Bittering changes from uncertain, to stubborn and anxious, and finally, adapted. When Harry and his family first land on Mars, he’s unsettled with his decision on the move. After the Bittering family unpacks and settles in, he’s still uncertain about his decision. Talking to his wife Cora, Harry says, “‘I feel like a salt crystal,’ he said, ‘in a mountain stream being washed away… For heaven’s sake, Cora, let’s buy tickets for home!’”(1) Overall, Harry feels uneasy about the decision to move to Mars. Undergoing a feeling of being an intruder, Harry feels as if his family are outsiders. Regretful of his decision, Harry proves that he isn’t ready for the adjustment that is taking place