![]() Random events take place and characters often do illogical things. ![]() Madness: this mood is chaotic and absurd. Jerome, the characters experience several comical events and misunderstandings that make the story amusing. ![]() Humorous: this mood contains funny incidents and hilarious situations that make you laugh. A story’s mood is created with the help of the setting, imagery, the types of words used, and their tone. Mood in literature is the general atmosphere and emotions the author wants the reader to feel while reading the book. A single book can have many different moods at different points. The mood of a story affects your mood in real life! It is an important tool used by authors to make their stories more interesting and to give you a sense of what’s to come. Mood in literature refers to the feelings you take away from reading the story. Let’s learn more about mood in literature. For example, if a story starts like “Harry was excited for his school trip to the zoo”, it will most likely have a fun and casual mood. A sharp contrast is drawn between the attitude of the two protagonists toward the scene, and the audience is sucked right in.Have you ever started reading a horror novel and felt creeped out? Every time we read, we feel certain emotions connected to the kind of story it is. In other words, reason meets emotion in this clash between tone and mood. The tonal horror necessary for the tension to unfold, then, is projected by the very different attitude of the journalist toward the scene: the readers are told that the interviewer “shuddered” and “recoiled” with “cold sweat running down the side of his face” as he watched the vampire before turning on the recorder to begin the interview. The dialogue bounces between vampire and journalist, monster and human, while the mood of prosaic reality is revealed in the simple details of a chair, table and recording device. His tone matches the mood, which is set by a rather unexotic backdrop of a cityscape through the window of an ordinary hotel room. His attitude, or tone, is one of quiet ease. Interview with a Vampire begins quite literally with the viewpoint of the protagonist, the vampire himself, who languidly opens the novel with, “I see…,” while preparing himself for an interview with a young journalist. However, sometimes tone and mood are at odds with one another. In this case, the protagonist’s tone matches the mood. The tone is one of apprehension and fear as the narrator explicitly tells us about his first night sleeping in a foreign hotel: “I did not sleep well…There was a dog howling all night under my window” and “ I had to drink up all the water” by the bedside, but “was still very thirsty” from the strong, unfamiliar seasoning in the food served the night before. To foreshadow the horror to come, the mood is punctuated with the narrator’s attitude about that subject. Tone certainly contributes to the mood of a story, but it is less about creating emotional resonance within the readers and more about communicating the narrator’s thoughts or state of mind. It is strongly related to the narrator’s point of view, delivered most reliably through choice of words, either explicitly or implicitly. Tone, on the other hand, is less sensual play and more the attitude of the characters toward the subject at hand. Is the world depicted familiar to the reader in its contemporary realism or is it fantastic and reminiscent of the distant past? How does everything look, smell and feel? And, most importantly, what does each scene reveal about the subject at hand? These are some of the questions we can ask to delve deeper into the mood emphasized in each sequence of an unfolding story. The physical atmosphere is built scene by scene to create a sense of time, place and reality. Mood in literature is firmly rooted in the locale or setting of the story that reveals the subject. Although both techniques can elicit particular emotions central to understanding a story, the terms are easily confused. Two ways in which authors communicate with readers is by the use of mood and tone. What is the Difference between Mood and Tone? Transcript (English and Spanish Subtitles Available in Video, Click HERE for Spanish Transcript)īy Lucia Stone and Marcos Norris, Oregon State University Instructors of English Literature
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