3.4.1 Tone

Tone simply means how the poet/speaker feels towards the subject/topic of the poem. He/she may be delighted, happy, scornful, critical, excited, exhilarated, saddened, disappointed, nasty, melancholic, superior, angry or whatever. The poet has an attitude towards the topic/subject which informs the poem as a whole. How does one recognise the tone? Let us read the following poem and analyse the descriptions and words and devices used. These hold the clues.

And the Hotel Room held only him
And the hotel room held only
him

and the alarm would ring
and he would dress
and lock the door

and the hotel room held only
him

and the bus would come
and he would open his paper
and then he would nod

and the hotel room held only
him

and the hot dank coffee smelled of people
and fans whirred, drawers slammed, typewriters clattered
and emptied eyes excluded him

and the hotel room held only
him

and he just missed the last seat on the bus
and he sat a long time in the cafeteria over his paper
and he walked slowly down the neoned streets

and the hotel room held only
him

and he threw up his hand and smiled at the desk clerk
and he took the half-silent self-service to seven
and he walked down the worn corridor

and he unlocked his door and closed it. . .slowly

and the hotel room held only
him

Mari Evans
(In Poetry An Introduction (1981). R. Miller & R. A. Greenberg (Eds.). New York: St Martin's Press.)

In the above poem we are presented with an office worker who lives alone in a hotel room and goes to work daily in a bus to an office where he has no friends. Each day he has a meal at the cafeteria and reads his newspaper. He catches the bus home in the evening, walking alone down neon-lit streets returning to the hotel where he always greets the clerk at the desk and orders the usual service. He reaches his room once more, along the worn corridor.

Here we have the statement of the poem. We are not told what is going on in the mind of the office worker but the poet indirectly reveals how he is feeling. His coffee is not refreshing but dank; office drawers around him are slammed; the fans whirr; he receives no friendly gestures from people - emptied eyes excluded him. In the hotel he walks slowly to his room along a worn corridor. Added to these descriptions is the five times repeated refrain: and the hotel room held only/him. Note how him is put out by itself in isolation on a separate line. The reader can sense easily that there is a soul-destroying sameness about the office worker's life with no element of joy or surprise or comfort, and that the hotel room with only him is like a prison which has taken over his life. There is no escape, not even in the office, bus or cafeteria. He is always alone. Note that there is only the one capital letter at the beginning of the poem; there is no punctuation, not even at the end. This is a monotonous life from which he cannot flee and the overall proof of it is found in the monotonous use of the word, "and" at the beginning of every line and stanza.

The description, diction and structure of the poem which, itself, is an example of a skilful use of free verse form, shows the poet, Mari Evans, disapproving of this kind of life-style. Her tone, detected in her choice of words and their usage, is condemnatory of such a lifeless, lonely existence.