Contents Of The Dead Man's Pockets Summary

Words: 846
Pages: 4

You can always make more money, but you can’t get back the time. Family is more important than work. In “Contents of the Dead Man’s Pockets” Tom loses a very important piece of yellow paper. He wastes no time and tries to fetch the paper back, which was outside his window 11 stories high. After a lot of struggles, he ended up being successful in getting the yellow paper. He gets back inside his house and places the piece of paper on his table, weighted down. Tom walks over to the coat closet to grab his coat and go see his wife at the movies. As Tom opens the door, the yellow paper filled with important work stuff flies out the room. Tom quickly realizes that this is all really dumb and goes to meet his wife at the movies. In “Contents of the Dead Man’s Pockets”, Finney uses tone to establish and show the …show more content…
When Tom is trying to get the yellow piece of paper from outside the window, Finney makes sure to change the tone in order to help the reader understand the theme more.”He ran across the room, grasped the bottom edge of the window, and tugged, staring through the glass. “He saw the yellow sheet, dimly now in the darkness outside, lying on the ornamental ledge a yard below the window” (Finney 2). By changing the tone in every scene, it connects to the theme because every time Tom thinks of his wife, the tone changes in a way that shows us readers he is worried about his wife and that he doesn't want to lose time with his wife while trying to fetch that silly piece of paper. Every time he thinks about the piece of paper, the tone is different, showing the readers that he feels differently about the paper. Finney utilizes the literary element tone to show the theme of family being more important than work by changing the tone when he is on the ledge about to fall off. While Tom was out trying to get his yellow piece of paper, he was just about to fall off the