Tone and Voice

When discussing an author’s work, it is important to understand the difference between tone and voice. An author’s tone reflects their attitude towards the topic they are writing about. An author’s voice is their personality expressed in writing. For example, in Karen Russell’s story, Sleep Donation, the Baby A was being harvested for its precious sleep as a resource. So far in the book the main idea is about the lack of sleep in society and the only way to save lives is to siphon sleep from donors. When discovering a baby that can save lives, it has been used everyday to extract sleep for the well being of others.

Russell’s tone can be described as sympathetic towards the issue of people suffering for the sake of other’s well being. This controversy has been a commonly used for other works and I think she is using this story to show the non-biased perspective of the situation. In the story, the main character understands both sides to the sleep-deprived epidemic.

I remembered in class when we discussed men and women writers and how it’s sometimes hard to tell what gender the author is. I can tell Russell was a woman before reading the story (Disregarding the name of course) and it seems evident with the choice of words when new characters, objects and settings are described. There could be parts where the author’s tone and voice are not similar but so far in Sleep Donation, the main character seems to have the right personality to fit the tone of the story.