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Style
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
Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis:
Fight Club is characterized by a detached, cynical tone that reflects the Narrator’s dissatisfaction with his life and society at large, as well as his unstable, fractured mental state. Even when experiencing emotional catharsis, the Narrator’s tone remains clinical. Take, for example, this passage in which he meets Bob, a survivor of testicular cancer with whom he finally feels safe crying after months of numbness and insomnia:
Fast-forward, Bob said, to the cancer. Then he was bankrupt. He had two grown kids who wouldn’t return his calls.
The cure for bitch tits was for the doctor to cut up under the pectorals and drain any fluid.
This was all I remember because then Bob was closing in around me with his arms, and his head was folding down to cover me. Then I was lost inside oblivion, dark and silent and complete, and when I finally stepped away from his soft chest, the front of Bob’s shirt was a wet mask of how I looked crying.
Even in what should be a moment of emotional sincerity, the narrator’s use of the phrase “bitch tits” is cuttingly humorous, not to mention the irreverent morbidity of the image he conjures of their removal. Meanwhile, the act of crying is literally muffled and concealed, only directly relayed to the reader through the afterimage of the Narrator’s tear stains on Bob’s shirt. It’s almost as if emotional catharsis is an out-of-body experience for the Narrator.
Fight Club’s satirical nature also creates some tonal ambivalence. While the novel’s critique of consumerism seems sincere, its attitude toward its characters’ response to consumerism, especially the more violent and misogynistic aspects of this response, isn’t entirely clear. Are the hypermasculine, chaos-inducing ideals of Fight Club and Project Mayhem being satirized, too, or presented in sincerity? The novel’s dry, detached narration makes it difficult to tell.
Related Themes:
