Mackenzie Hardy

1st hour
10/29/15
ADV Language Arts
Incarceron

If it means my death, I dont care, because even death will be a sort of freedom. The
amazing mystery book, Incarceron, written by Catherine Fisher, is a tremendous story where a
young man named Finn, cannot remember his childhood and finds himself a prisoner in
Incarceron. Incarceron is a cold, dark prison thats alive and sees everything. Claudia lives on
the outside of the prison and wishes completely that she could escape protocol. Her father is the
warden of Incarceron and she is about to be a prisoner herself, doomed to an arranged marriage.
Finn and Claudia eventually find a way to contact each other. If Claudia helps Finn to escape, he
has to do her a favor in return. What they dont realize is that there is more to Incarceron then
they could ever imagine. Through the authors tone, a reader will be able to predict the storys
future conflicts.
One example of tone is horror. As Finn walked into the black room with his friend Gildas,
there was nothing except three strange voices, He breathed hard, hearing echoes, a strange
rustle. His senses warned him of a great emptiness before him, or perhaps to the side; he was
terrified of taking another step in case he plummeted into some unknown depths (216). This
helps a reader to feel the terror because the eerie tone gives the impression that something bad is
about to happen to Finn and Gildas after the two are sentenced to death.
Next the piece's tone changes to self-pity. When Claudia has to leave, there are many
people she has to leave behind. They would all miss Jared, his gentle ways, his fragile good

looks, his willingness to dose their coughing children and advise their wayward sons. None of
them seemed at all sorry to see her go (193). This tone helps the reader to understand that not
all the conflicts will be bad or good, but might be sad as well. Both Claudia and Jared have to
move to the palace where Claudia has to get married but. Every one of her servants seem more
mournful to watch Jared go. This also highlighted some of Claudias conflicts with her father.
This last piece of evidence is suspicion. Claudia is about to get married when her dad
comes in, She smiled and dropped a curtsey. Im ready sir. He nodded. I always knew youd
never let me down. Like my mother did?(p.192). This piece of evidence helps a reader to
suspect that the father may have had something to do with Claudias mothers death. Claudia had
been wondering about her mother and why there were never any pictures of her around the
house. And she noticed how he seemed to change the conversation whenever the topic came up.
The authors tone in her writing will help a reader to predict certain conflicts in the story.
As the authors tone moves from one tone to another, each change foreshadows future events.