Question

which best describes the tone of this excerpt?
a. indifferent
b. enlightened
c. grammatical
d. sympathetic

Answer 1

The tone of the excerpt can be best described as:

d- sympathetic

John Steinbeck's narration, with his characters going through hardship, with their hunger and their needs, is a true display of sympathy. The figurative way the author tells the story (as in "their hunger was in their eyes") shows a lot of compassion for the characters. Had the author been indifferent, he would simply have stated that the characters needed to eat, that is, he would have used a rawer approach.

Answer 2

The tone that best describes the writing style used on this excerpt is enlightened, because he uses rhetorical figures to describe feeling. For example, saying that hunger is in their eyes is a metaphor that express  feeling as nobody can feel hunger on their eyes but on their stomach.