The mood of the “Oval Portrait” is melancholy, reflecting the tragic story that the unnamed narrator encounters in the abandoned Italian chateau. After examining a surprisingly lifelike portrait of a young woman, the narrator reads about the painting in a book, which describes the “passionate” and obsessive painter who was once married to the sitter of the portrait:
[He] was a passionate, and wild, and moody man, who became lost in reveries; so that he would not see that the light which fell so ghastly in that lone turret withered the health and the spirits of his bride, who pined visibly to all but him. Yet she smiled on and still on, uncomplainingly, because she saw that the painter (who had high renown) took a fervid and burning pleasure in his task, and wrought day and night to depict her who so loved him, yet who grew daily more dispirited and weak.
Poe’s language here emphasizes the sweet and obliging nature of the young bride, which heightens the sense of tragedy surrounding her death. Though she suffers as a result of her husband’s obsession with painting her, she “smile[s] on, uncomplainingly” because she loves him deeply and recognizes that he takes a “burning pleasure in his task.” Poe’s language here assumes a particularly melancholy tone appropriate to the sad story that the narrator uncovers in the chateau.
