The tone of a work of literature is of course the attitude
of the author towards a subject, character or theme. The overwhelming focus of this
great pioneer work of American Literature is the frontier and the kind of hope that it
inspired in those who eagerly filled it with their dreams of a new life marked by
success and provision for their families. One of the distinguishing features of this
moving work is the many descriptions of the beauty of the frontier countryside. Note the
following example from Chapter Four:
I used to love to drift along the pale yellow
cornfields, looking for the damp spots one sometimes found at their edges, where the
smartweed soon turned a rich copper colour and the narrow brown leaves hung curled like
cocoons about the swollen joints of the
stem.
There is evident in
such descriptions a tone of child-like wonder and innocence at the beauty of nature, and
thus we can describe this novel's tone as one of nostalgia, with the looking back that
is represented throughout this text being idyllic and nostalgic.
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