In the poem “Rome Poem”, Natalie Foote uses connotative diction and a bitter tone to develop the theme of “Don't judge something until you try it”. In the poem, the narrator is bitter about their parents taking them to Europe for a vacation. The author uses words such as “waste” and “boring” to convey a bitter tone. If the author had used the word “dull” instead of “boring”, then it wouldn’t have portrayed the narrator as being annoyed about the situation. The word “dull” would make the narrator’s protests sound halfhearted, as if they still had a small glimmer of hope that the vacation would turn out okay. But since the author used the word “boring” it shows that the narrator is fully against the idea of the vacation and didn’t enjoy the…show more content… If the author had used the word “useless” instead of “waste”, then it would have portrayed a censorious tone, making the narrator sound disrespectful instead of just angry and bitter. The use of the word “waste” shows that the narrator is upset about the situation but isn't becoming rude and obnoxious. To portray the correct tone, the author must use the correct connotative diction, and for the author to show the correct theme, they must have the correct tone. For example when Natalie Foote uses harsh words that aren't too disrespectful to portray a bitter tone so that the theme “Don’t judge something until you try it” is shown. In “Rome Poem”, the narrator has to sound bitter so at the end they can realize that the vacation wasn’t as bad as they thought it would be, and the theme “Don’t judge something until you try it” is shown. If the narrator started out excited and never judged the vacation then they couldn’t learn not to judge something. The way the theme is portrayed is that the narrator makes negative assumptions about the vacation without really giving it a chance. The narrator then learns the lesson of not judging when they realize that the vacation was much better than they expected it to
