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Metaphors
Definition of Mood
The mood of a piece of writing is its general atmosphere or emotional complexion—in short, the array of feelings the work evokes in the reader. Every aspect of a piece of writing... read full definition
The mood of a piece of writing is its general atmosphere or emotional complexion—in short, the array of feelings the work evokes in the reader. Every aspect... read full definition
The mood of a piece of writing is its general atmosphere or emotional complexion—in short, the array of feelings the work evokes... read full definition
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis:
The mood of the novel is primarily resentful and angry. Though Merricat speaks with warmth about Constance, Uncle Julian, and Jonas, she is wary and suspicious of strangers and bitterly resents the villagers, who return her animosity. The angry tone of Merricat’s narration is evident in a scene in which Merricat imagines the villagers dead while making her weekly visit to the village in order to purchase groceries:
I wish you were all dead, I thought. [...] I would have liked to come into the grocery some morning and see them all, even the Elberts and the children, lying there crying with the pain and dying. I would then help myself to groceries, I thought, stepping over their bodies, taking whatever I fancied from the shelves, and go home, with perhaps a kick for Mrs. Donell while she lay there. I was never sorry when I had thoughts like this; I only wished they would come true. “It’s wrong to hate them,” Constance said, “it only weakens you,” but I hated them anyway [...]
