Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?
Light-Hearted Yet Melancholy
Dark Water has a complex tone. It's like a high-low dress or a mullet—it can't really decide whether it wants to be one thing or the other, so it decides to be both. On the one hand, Pearl jokes around and strikes up a very light-hearted tone with us. She mocks French by adding le to every second word, considers moisturizing her earlobes so they don't look old, and even pokes fun at her mom's love of the silkworms.
Then there's the ultra-serious, foreboding side to Pearl. We call this her melancholy side. Check out what she says to her mom after the fire:
"Remember when you burned your wedding pictures in the grill?" I asked my mother. "Yes," she said. "I guess you could have just waited." (55.3)
Whoa. Their house has just burned to the ground, along with all of their belongings, plus Hoyt died in the fire. It's a pretty melancholy moment, and so Pearl's generally carefree tone takes on a dark undertone. There's something looming underneath the joke here: Pearl's telling her mom that everything in life is temporary and nothing is safe because it could all burn to the ground at any moment.
That's a big statement for a fifteen-year-old to make. We told you she was complicated.