Before everything gets challenging,
let’s watch this!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=GNWRr2nUmvg
TONE, MOOD and ATMOSPHERE
Analysis
Tone
• is an attitude of a writer toward a subject or
an audience.
• Tone is generally conveyed through the choice of words,
or the viewpoint of a writer on a particular subject.
• Example:
Unfortunately, the uproar awoke Mr. Jones, who sprang out of bed, making
sure that there was a fox in the yard. He seized the gun which always stood
in a corner of his bedroom, and let fly a charge of number 6 shot into the
darkness. The pellets buried themselves in the wall of the barn and the
meeting broke up hurriedly. Everyone fled to his own sleeping-place. The
birds jumped on to their perches, the animals settled down in the straw, and
the whole farm was asleep in a moment.
What tone do you think does the writer want to achieve here?
Outline some words that help in achieving the tone.
Functions of Tone
• decides how the readers read a literary piece, and
how they should feel while they are reading it.
• It stimulates the readers to read a piece of literature
as a serious, comical, spectacular, or distressing
manner.
• lends shape and life to a piece of literature because it
creates a mood
• bestows voice to characters, and throws light on the
personalities and dispositions of characters that
readers understand better.
Mood
•
•
is a literary element that evokes certain feelings or
vibes in readers through words and descriptions.
Mood is developed in a literary piece through
various methods, including setting, theme, tone.
Mood
I. Setting creates mood
example
1. “As
soon as the light in the bedroom went out there
was a stirring and a fluttering all through the farm
buildings.”
2. “The river, reflecting the clear blue of the sky,
glistened and sparkled as it flowed noiselessly on.”
What mood is created by the above settings?
Mood
Creating Mood through Tone
example:
• “My
sight is failing,” she said finally. “Even when I
was young I could not have read what was written
there. But it appears to me that that wall looks
different. Are the Seven Commandments the same as
they used to be, Benjamin?”
• How did the excerpt make you feel?
Atmosphere
•
is a type of feeling that readers get from a narrative, based
on details such as setting, background, objects,
and foreshadowing.
• used to describe the feeling or vibe—the awkwardness, the
creepiness, the bursting energy—that is imposed upon us in a
physical environment, situation or space
e.g. "room", "Times Square", "haunted house“
• the setting (environment) of a text is what establishes the
atmosphere.
• Settings are usually constructed via the description of objects in
the setting
e.g. a creaking floorboard in the haunted house
Example 1
Show through description
what you have in mind.
Let’s analyse
• Techniques:
Honking cars in New York City, the bright bill boards, and the sea of people
(these aren’t actually techniques; they’re examples of imagery, and we’ll talk
about that very soon in the course)
• Atmosphere
bustling, dynamic, energetic
• Mood:
awe, excitement
Both atmosphere and mood refer to feelings, but there’s a small
difference.
-The atmosphere is an external feeling coming from the physical
environment.
- The mood is the internal feeling of the reader.
- The external feeling induces the excitement in the reader and thereby
influences the mood.
Example 2
Show through description
what you have in mind.
What is the atmosphere?
How do you feel?
How to distinguish atmosphere and
tone
Entirely tonal
“This city is so disgusting and infested. Ugh! I would never
go there!”
Entirely atmospheric
“The silent air of the city had a dusty, stagnant feel to it, as if
the pulsing river of life that had once coursed through its
archways and corridors were now impeded, blocked, by the
mounds of dusty rubble.”
• Lifeless atmosphere—focus is on the physical setting
How to distinguish atmosphere
and tone
Combination of both tone and
atmosphere
“The silent city was a dilapidated, defiled mess, a
collection of infested rubble that seemed to be
screaming helplessly into the heavy, dusty air for the
return of human life.”
• Disgusted tone and lifeless atmosphere
When to analyse tone or atmosphere?
Tone:
• Analyse tone when the voice shows a subjective
attitude towards something—a character, a
theme or an object.
• One exception is a factual tone, but a factual
tone still indicates the narrator’s serious attitude
towards that something.
Atmosphere:
•
Atmosphere is appropriate when the voice has a
neutral attitude and yet we feel an emotion as
the reader.
How is tone related to atmosphere and
mood?
How is tone related to atmosphere and
mood?
the techniques are at the start of the analysis
'pipeline' or process;
• the tone and atmosphere are the intermediate
'feelings' and 'sounds' that we get from these
techniques;
• and then the ultimate end goal is the mood of the
reader--how they feel as a result of the techniques,
as explained via the intermediaries of tone and
atmosphere.
•
More Examples
Tonal or Atmospheric? Give evidence
“It was the most frightening hour of my life! I
crept slowly along the wall, making sure he—or
whoever or whatever he or it was—couldn’t hear
me. I was so certain he, or it, was right there that
my heart beat like a thumping elephant…halfexpecting something to jump out at me from the
bushes.”
More Examples
Tonal or Atmospheric? Give Evidence
“The night was cold. A silver sliver of moonlight pierced
the clouds here and there so that the garden was
completely shrouded in darkness in some places and yet
naked and exposed in others. Luke kept close to the wall
as he crept slowly, slowly, towards what he thought was
the thing. Suddenly, he stopped. He stared intently at
the bushes and braced himself for the worst, as if
expecting some unworldly monster to run out from
under those dense leaves and bite him.”
Now, let’s analyse the tone, mood and atmosphere
in George Orwell’s Animal Farm…
Let’s get down to work!