Diction on Authors Tone

“Horrible sinking of the heart”(76)

“Victims of a relentless fat, cornered, trapped, in the grip of destruction. (76)

“River of death” (36)

“Black paralyzing awful horror” (277)

“Sickening stench” (40)

“Grandmother Majauskiene had lived in the midst of misfortune so long that it had become to be her element, and she talked about starvation, sickness and death as other people might about weddings and holidays”(72)

The constant struggle depicted though Sinclair’s negative diction exercised while the family is both hard at work, or at home creates a poignant attitude toward the life in Chicago. While the family faces contestant struggles trying to make ends meet they are bombarded with “starvation, sickness and death.” Just as how Grandmother Majauskiene’s “misfortune had become her element” the same effect can be exhibited among the Rudkus family as well as Sinclair’s diction. Connotation wise, “misfortune” implies a state of tragedy and time for mourning while “holidays” usually indicate a time of joy and celebration. These polar opposites are diluted as the novel continues. It becomes a casual instance when the workers, “found [Stanislovas] killed and eaten him nearly all up” (326). The lack of any dramatic words involved in the death of one of the youngest boys left in the family signals a sense of acceptance towards the forces of the city. Sinclair’s shifts in word choice as well as his tone confirm this idea of the erosion of feelings of a miserable state to an unemotional regularity.