Good literature should always actively engage the audience. Failure to engage the audience could render the literature as detached as technical writing. An example of this difference is the news article Birmingham bomb by Claude Sitton. Though parts of the story do tend to attempt to sway the listener to a compassionate way of thinking with the use of imagery, such as "church members said they found the girls huddled together..." the entire article is littered with facts and statistics, making it dry and detached. In Contrast, Ballad of Birmingham by Dudley Randall more actively engages the audience. Mr. Randall uses extensive character building to evoke feelings of sentiment for the girl. Use of phrases such as "bathed rose petal sweet" and frequent use of the term "baby" to address the child tend to instill a feeling of innocence and sacredness toward the character. Later, when she is killed, the audience will feel more sympathetic for the child than without the association of a character, and therefore be more engaged in the story.
             Some literature actively engages the reader with an appreciation of tone. Tone can be the mood of the literature, whether cheery, gloomy, dull, or adventurous. Langston Hughes' From the Big Sea caught my interest with tone. I would describe it as quaint. He first tells how the Harlem renaissance was only in the minds of the intellectual blacks in the high-toned lounges and clubs. Later he describes "rent parties" that set the tone for the rest of the story. These rent parties are for the local people, they are impromptu, and the atmosphere is quaint. Since the rent parties are advertised locally on "apartment house elevators" and such, most attendees would be from one's community. The food tended to cater to the blacks with "bootleg [cheap] whiskey and fried fish or steaming chitterling." This culminated in a quaint social climate that captured my interest throughout the rest of the work.
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