Voice and Tone

Overall, the voice Harvey uses is extremely direct because he just mirrors how he and the people in his world talk. The dialogue is written as naturally and casually as possible so the individual characters’ voices sound realistic. The tone of the writing is highly influenced by the culture from the place (Cleveland) and the time (the 70’s). The way characters talk express freedom, youth, and a very informal nature through the use of slang and colloquial dialect. Harvey cleverly articulates the way characters speak and pronounce words by purposely misspelling words like “gennulmen” (gentlemen), “pitchers” (pictures), and “tempachure” (temperature). These techniques all help sell the lower class lifestyle Harvey was living in.