A Long Way Gone Home Analysis

The author of this text wants the reader to see how the family felt after being robbed. They were in complete shock. The family’s house got robbed of all of their valuables. Now their trying to find a new place to live. The writing strategy I used was tone. The author uses tone to show how she felt towards the family when they got home and realized they were robbed. The author of this book used tone in this text to emphasize how the family was in complete shock when they came home and saw that they were robbed. One example demonstrates the family wasn’t stressed or wasn’t worried because the robbers forgot some valuable stuff “The foolish thieves had overlooked some good stuff, such as a pair of Grandma Smith’s riding breeches from the thirties
that were of the highest quality”(Walls 149). The family was out and about, and when they came home, they see some of their valuables are missing. They overlooked this incident and decided to try and find a new place to live and so they can stay far away from their old house and their old neighborhood.
Tone was used to explain the reaction that the family had to this incident. The family is gonna try to move out and find a different place to live where they will be safe and not have to worry about getting robbed again. Another example shows that the family’s life is going downhill slowly. Their Oldsmobile ended up breaking down and when their house was broken into and robbed. The family is trying to replace the Oldsmobile “Dad was still looking for a car to replace the Oldsmobile-our budget was in the high two figures”(Walls 150). Since they have no transportation, they had to walk and find a new car and a new house to live in. The author uses tone here to show how the family felt after they found out they need a new car. The family has a good amount of money saved up to be able to buy a new car and a new house. Finding a new house is their main priority at this point. Farther into the text the family comes across a new house at the end of a dead end street “We followed the road almost to the end, where Dad pointed up at our new house”(Walls 150) . They welcome themselves into the house on Little Hobart Street “ Well, kids, welcome to Ninety-three Little
Hobart Street!”(Walls 150). Tone portrays this example by showing how the family was relieved to find a new house to live in, they can’t afford to turn on the power at this time because they don’t have enough money “Dad confessed that we could not at this moment afford to have the power on”(Walls 151). Now the family has to find a car to be able to get around more quickly. In conclusion, you can see that I have proven that tone was portrayed in multiple ways in these 3 pages. Showing the family is not giving up on life and will pull through and try to make their life better.They knew something bad was going to happen because they lived in a bad neighborhood, so they didn’t get let down when they found out their house was robbed of most of their valuables.