The tone of the short story has an unrelenting intensity that is stoked by the conflict between Delia and Sykes. The story revolves around their marital conflict, and is told with an immediacy that encourages the reader to experience the anger and desperation that the wife, Delia, feels. During a fight, Delia says "calmly,"
"Ah hates you, Sykes... Ah hates you tuh de same degree dat Ah uster love yuh."
The use of the descriptor "calmly" conveys the deep anger that Delia feels towards Sykes—her words are not spoken in a moment of passion, but rather emerge from years of abuse and neglect. This cumulative emotion creates a sense that the couple cannot go on as they are, and results in a strangled, foreboding intensity. There is a feeling of menace and violence lurking just below the surface, which makes the reader feel uneasy and on edge.
The reader has access to Delia’s interiority, which is raw and sentimental, and frequently dwells on the sadness and loss in her life. This creates an emotional, intimate tone:
Finally she grew quiet, and after that, coherent thought. With this, stalked through her a cold, bloody rage. Hours of this. A period of introspection, a space of retrospection, then a mixture of both. Out of this an awful calm. “Well, Ah done de bes’ Ah could. If things aint right, Gawd knows taint mah fault.”
Hurston displays Delia's emotional shifts and internal thoughts as she moves from hot anger to a "cold, bloody rage." As Delia withdraws into herself, the reader is invited into her interiority and encounters the depth of negative emotion Delia experiences. This creates an intimacy between the reader and the protagonist, and gives the story a poignant, emotive tone. Readers don't just see what Delia sees—they feel what she feels.
