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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 “Bliss” can be described as obliquely critical, in contrast to Bertha’s own naiveté. Though Mansfield’s use of the close third-person may seem like an endorsement of Bertha’s perspective, as Bertha’s world comes into focus, Mansfield's slyly suggestive tone allows the reader to understand her as a character who does not truly know herself (and cannot fully articulate her desires, or even comprehend them). Bertha believes her world, and her life, to be infallible, but clearly, this is not the case. She is in a loveless marriage, bound to conventions and traditions, and removed from her own daughter, who is cared for by a nanny.
Mansfield’s use of understatement is crucial to the creation of this tone. She carefully hints at the constraints Bertha faces, as well as her feelings for Pearl, without explicitly discussing them, which allows Mansfield to develop Bertha as a rather innocent, blameless character while simultaneously commenting on her situation. “Oh, she'd loved him…but just not in that way…It had worried her dreadfully at first to find that she was so cold,” Mansfield writes, referring to Bertha’s relationship with her husband, “but after a time it had not.” Rather than clearly describing Bertha's sexual identity, Mansfield builds in more ambiguity: she is merely “cold" in temperament, and apparently not romantic with Harry (though she is with Pearl). Bertha is also portrayed as having “fallen in love” with Pearl, “as she always did fall in love with beautiful women who had something strange about them”—a description that could be read as relatively platonic, akin to a friend crush. Bertha seems to take these statements about herself at face value, but the reader is aware of their duality: given that Bertha's "love" for Pearl provokes such intense feelings in her, it cannot merely be platonic.
Since “Bliss” was published during an era in which mainstream publishers would not have considered homosexuality an appropriate subject for literature, Mansfield’s somewhat detached but winking tone can be seen as a radical experiment: a means of publishing a story about same-sex love and desire without eliciting censorship.
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