Tone and Voice

When reading a novel, or writing about it, it is very important to know the difference between tone and voice. Tone shows the author’s attitude towards the subject, and voice is the writing style of the author or the way their personality is expressed in the writing. In Sleep Donation by Karen Russell, there is a society with a shortage of sleep. In order for some people to get sleep others must donate. Throughout the story there is a baby, called Baby A, who is being harvested for its sleep.

Karen Russell’s tone is quite sympathetic toward the baby and her family. They are all suffering from lack of sleep in order to help others, but the main character also understands why it must be done because her sister died from not sleeping enough. There are many people in the society who are also in that situation. In this society, sleep is a precious thing and is hard to come by. Karen Russell’s tone is sympathetic, as well as understanding.

Even if I didn’t know that the author is a woman, I think I can tell through her voice in the writing of the story. The way she sympathizes for the baby and her parents seems like it is from the perspective of a woman, or even a mother. Even the way she describes the characters and setting, in some cases, sounds like it could be a woman writing it. It is hard to explain why I make that connection, but knowing how my friends and I describe things, and having read many novels written by men, it just seems to have a woman’s voice. Some times when reading a novel it is difficult to tell if the author is a man or woman, but other times, like now, I definitely feel that the voice of the author is quite feminine.

Level Up

You are stuck in the safe zone at one of the thousands of identical, massive school campuses. Every one of them is the same and separated by green fields, parks, and rivers.  The never-ending green view has become rather boring, and there is nothing for you to do other than gain experience points. The more experience points you have, the faster you can move on. As soon as the bell rings you enter the hallway, looking for someone, but you don’t know whom yet. The only way you can earn experience points at this level is to hitch a ride with another avatar to other planets where you can survive. You see a user in the distance walking toward the front doors. They are moving on. Your shoes slide across the tile floor as you rush to catch up because you don’t know how much longer you’ll have to wait before you catch another ride.

As you approach a newbie-level gaming zone on another planet, you see in the distance a couple of medium size orcs. Orcs, along with other monsters on this level, are too weak to kill you. When you kill one of these monsters you will either drop some coins for you to collect, or they will drop an item. This is where you received your sword, shield, and armor. You attack, and win. After you have collected as much as you can, you count your fare to make sure you have enough to get back to school. You don’t. You are now in danger of being expelled because of how many unexcused absences you have. If you get expelled you have to return your Oasis console. You must find an after-school job in order to get back to the school to avoid expulsion. If you, a third-level gunter, are seen here by the other gunters you will surly be made fun of. They already think you are a noob, so you need to try to be discrete as you work.

Danticat's "The Dew Breaker"

After reading a few stories in Edwidge Danticat’s The Dew Breaker, I soon realize how the characters are related, and how they fit in to their environment. The characters seem to bond throughout the stories because they are from Haiti. They tell stories of the past, which leads me to the stories entitled Seven and Night Talkers. In Seven, the characters are all living in a basement together. This is where a handful of the characters are introduced. Dany, who appears again in Night Talkers, explains his story. He traveled from New York back home to Haiti to visit his aunt who ends up dying before he can finish telling her his story of how he found and was going to kill the man who murdered his family, but he chickened out.

The stories all together do a good job at bringing the characters together, while still allowing each character to develop in their own setting. With that being said, the environments that the characters are put in are all different, but at the same time they are similar. Although they are in different places, all the characters connect in some way, whether it is friends, family, or mutual acquaintances. Most of these characters though, are living in New York and trying to adjust to living in a new place. All of the characters are from Haiti too, which creates almost a setting inside a setting. All the characters are in their own settings and environments, but they all love to talk and think about Haiti and where they belong. Every one of them is trying to find their place and where they belong, since they are far from home.

My World Back Home

Inside it is cold. I may need a sweater. The house smells like pasta because mom is making lasagna. It is loud with Jaxson’s drumming coming from upstairs and mom’s podcast of talk radio blaring from the kitchen. I need silence. I walk through the glass back door with the dogs following close behind. The air is wet and hot. But not hot enough to go back inside. It’s the hot that makes you want to sit and wait for the Texas breeze that may never come. The turquois lawn chair is warm on my soft, freshly shaved legs. It is a relaxing place where all you hear is the faint sound of cars passing on the other side of the house, and squirrels playing tag through the pear and oak trees. The first squirrel runs to the fence and stops to wait for its friend. Lucy spots the squirrel and darts to the fence to try to catch it. Both of the playful squirrels run along the top of the fence in retreat. They jump on to the pear tree just in time to miss being caught by the enthusiastic pup. She then sees a huge white bird in the back, past the fence about half an acre, near the wooded area.

The pool is glistening in the afternoon sun. At last a warm, humid breeze comes through and causes a mass of tiny white flowers to fall into the pool from the pear tree. This pear tree in particular is only half a tree. In 2008 when hurricane Ike hit, a bolt of lightning hit the tree and took half of it. The tree has grown immensely since then, but is still cut perfectly in half. Every time I see that tree I think of the devastation on the island, which is 25 minutes away. It has been seven years and there are still buildings torn to pieces and overgrown boats that were washed up near the highway. Tookie’s, one of the best burger joints, even has a painted line on the wall up to my head where the water line was from the storm. I’m glad there hasn’t been a bad hurricane since then. It would be terrible if there were one, but this community is good at working together to get people back on their feet after losing everything.

This place, my home in Texas, is 1,039 miles away now. I miss it.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Before I explain my thoughts about the novel, “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz, I would like to say that all of this is my opinion and thoughts about the novel.

I read the first chapter of this novel and then detailed summaries of the rest of the novel. I did not finish reading the book for multiple reasons. The first reason being I did not like the writing style of Junot Diaz at all. The second reason is that I do not enjoy the content of the book. The whole story is about a guy fantasizing about women. He makes women in to sex symbols, and it was very offensive. I did not feel comfortable with finishing this novel because of the content. There was a lot of profanity, and I felt like this book was just about the guy fantasizing about women. I can’t even tell you what the story was about because that’s all it seemed to be.

Now, I understand that the world is uncomfortable, and that bad things happen every day. I am not putting on blinders, so to speak, to the real world and real events. Yes, these things are terrible and should make you uncomfortable, but the news is real and people should know about real events that are going on. I also understand that everyone should push themselves to be uncomfortable in order to learn. However, I feel that there is a point in which that person can say no, that is just too far. I have a problem with “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” because this story only seems to be about a man’s pleasure, but it isn’t even a true story. If it was a true story and there was something to learn from reading the novel, then I would finish it. But because I felt that the point of the story was not relevant to my life in any way, and I don’t feel I would learn anything from it, and all it did was make me uncomfortable, I chose not to finish it. I don’t think I need to go out of my way to read about terrible situations, from a story that isn’t even true.