On Beauty: Tone 1 key example

This wry voice colors all of the novel's dialogue and character movement, especially in its academic settings or in its moments of family awkwardness. The narrator rarely supports the emotions of the characters unilaterally. Instead, their tone questions the sincerity or value of those emotions, just as Howard encourages his students to question the values they assign to beauty or to sincerity. This creates distance between the reader and the they’re reading. It also interweaves the novel’s focus on academic analysis into its overall tone. 

During moments of crisis the tone sometimes shifts. When Howard’s behavior becomes impossible to contain or ignore, the narration drops some of its irony. It becomes clearer and more stripped down, especially in moments like his first encounters with Victoria where Howard isn’t able to analyze the cause of his behavior as things are happening so fast.  Kiki’s private thoughts—especially in moments where she’s confronted with uncomfortable truths or has interactions that feel especially weighted by other people’s preconceptions on her race and her weight—receive more space and less mockery. The narrator still refuses to speak sentimentally, but the tone becomes less critical and mocking and more sympathetic. 

The narrator often uses understatement or signals that important things are left unspoken, especially during family fights or the novel's many written and spoken intellectual debates. When the emotional consequences of conversations like Zora’s appeal to Dean French roll out, the narrator allows more space for direct speech or unfiltered thought. Instead of hiding her true feelings about Zora behind a professional screen of empathy, Claire is able to be overtly critical of both her actions and her poetry when Dean French brings the situation with her class to a head. The narrator often separates from character perspective, too, especially when Smith incorporates letters or email messages into the narrative. Even when characters explicitly say they believe in things or feel strong emotions (as when Jerome emails his family about his feelings for Victoria) the narrator questions these beliefs. As the novel continues, this also becomes more and more visible in scenes that focus on Kiki. Her hopes and wishes sit beside the narrator’s quiet refusal to support them.