The mood of Six Characters in Search of an Author is both chaotic and conflicted. The central argument between the Actors and Characters concerns which group is "real." This creates a sense of existential chaos—which people on stage are real? Are they playing themselves? What is the significance of their lives? Can an author create characters who exist outside the imagined world of a story? These questions create a sense of confusion that extends to viewers, who might also begin to question their own lives in comparison to the play that they are watching.
The story also inspires a series of conflicted feelings by presenting moments of contention among the characters, including philosophical revelations followed by revelatory disappointments, moments of moral transgression (such as when the Father sleeps with the Step-Daughter), and litanies of contradictory excuses. For instance, in Act 1, the Father says:
Fool! That is the proof that I am a man! This seeming contradiction, gentlemen, is the strongest proof that I stand here a live man before you. Why, it is just for this very incongruity in my nature that I have had to suffer what I have.
Here, the Father claims that his humanity lies in a "seeming contradiction" and that an "incongruity" in his nature has caused him great suffering. He frequently argues with his family about his relative innocence. Other examples of conflict include argument after argument (most notably between the Father and the Manager). These elements of chaos and conflict contribute to a fitting mood for a play that posits the absurdity of the human condition. The play further devolves into chaos in the final act as the story becomes physically violent; the Boy gets shot by the revolver and the Manager incongruously laments about how much time he has wasted with these people.
