In addition to punctuation, how else can you determine an author's tone? :

answer: you can determine the tone by finding the author's mood, or attitude in the story. for instance, the author of charlotte's web has a sad and peaceful mood, like in this sentence, "but i feel peaceful. your success in the ring this morning was, to a small degree, my success. your future is assured. you will live, secure and safe, wilbur. nothing can harm you now". these sentences reflect on the author's attitude as being calm and carefree.

to kill a mockingbird basically is about a lawyer who goes against everything in a racist society like at the time of this novel, to defend a black man accused of sexual abuse. in the bible there are cases like that of joseph, who was accused by the woman of potifar, for a crime similar to that of tim robbinson, of that novel (genesis 39: 1-20). at this point we see that god also provides the escape to joseph, who was accused unjustly, but in his time, and through his attitude, his faith was not shaken, and god provided the solution. the perspective of god also written in the bible and not pay evil with evil. (ephesians 4: 32, 1 thessalonians 5: 15, 1 peter 3: 9). atticus, the lawyer, demonstrated during this lee novel, empathy, love of neighbor, understood the situation of this accused man. he went against everything in that society, and stood in favor of that man, for the injustice committed. this shows the empathy, the love taught by christ, in some passages that speak of love and justice in the sermon of the beatitudes (especially verses 6 and 7 of matthew 5).