Tone Techniques: Dances with Wolves In his novel "Dances with Wolves", Michael Blake uses several techniques throughout the story to enhance the tone shown to the reader. Blake uses tones that vary from sad (war times) to happy (victorious). Tone can be defined as the emotion or feeling conveyed to the reader during a novel/story. In most cases, the tone will change. It can change from sad to dramatic, happy to angry, angry to calm, or pretty much anything else. Tone is important because it defines the theme, or main feeling of the story. In “Dances with Wolves,” the tone changes dramatically as the story progresses. At the beginning Blake gives us a hostile environment. The setting is that Dunbar, a drunken army officer, is assigned to a remote trading post near a tribe of Sioux Indians, his sworn enemies. Communication between them is limited, and the Indian tribe describes the white men as "stupid and useless." The feeling is also mutual. White men then considered the Indians barbaric, uncivilized, and even useless. These two groups of people behaved extremely hostilely towards each other. But things will definitely change. Dunbar only goes out because he wants to see the frontier, or the land that hasn't been settled. This happens to be Indian land. As the story progresses, Dunbar befriends the tribe, turns against his Northern army, and goes to live with the Sioux. The tone here is one of a warmer, friendlier environment, as Dunbar realizes that his new friends are more civilized than men of his kind. Things really start to change when Dunbar's troops discover that he has joined the Sioux. They trap him and beat him, then make him serve as a slave. Dunbar never returns to the white men's army. The way Blake presents the overall use of tone in this story only makes it more intriguing and exciting. I think the prevailing mood in this novel is one of courage, shown mostly by the Indians, but mostly through John Dunbar. About halfway through the story, we find a romantic tone through John and “Stands With a Fist.