Mood in Literature — Definition, Types, and Examples
What is the mood of a story?
As a literary device, a story’s mood is the emotional response a writer wants the reader to feel when reading the work. These emotional responses can be positive or negative.
To create a certain mood, authors use genre, setting, imagery, and diction.
Genre: Simply being aware of the genre of a story can create a certain mood for the reader. Knowing that a literary work is a fable or fairy tale elicits a general feeling of whimsy, while a mystery novel can create a tense or foreboding atmosphere.
Setting: The time and location of a work can impact the reader's mood. A story occurring at night vs. during the day would create two different atmospheres in the same way if the location were in a park vs. a cemetery.
Imagery: By appealing to the senses through imagery, writers create situations that readers can experience. Detailing bright, warm colors along with the smell of flowers or freshly baked cookies develop a mood differently than the sound of nails on a chalkboard or the frigid temperatures felt when falling through ice into a lake.
Diction: Incorporating words with connotations that produce an emotional response, called diction, helps writers create a desired mood. Using words with the same meaning yet different connotations (e.g., determined vs. stubborn) helps develop a specific tone.
Tone vs. mood
The author’s tone in a piece of writing is the author's attitude toward the subject matter, whereas the mood is the reader's feelings. Authors mainly create a specific tone using diction (choice of words) and imagery. The tone involves the writer, while the mood involves the reader.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: At one point in the novel, a group of men arrives at the jail to supposedly kill Tom Robinson, a Black man accused of a crime he did not commit. When the young Scout recognizes one of the men, she begins talking to him about knowing his son.
While the tone the author creates is one of innocence, as suggested by Scout's inability to recognize what is happening, the mood Lee develops is tense and awkward, as the reader knows why the men are there.
Mood examples
The following chart includes a categorized list of common examples of mood:
| Positive | Negative |
|---|---|
| amused | annoyed |
| calm | cynical |
| excited | frustrated |
| hopeful | grumpy |
| light-hearted | lonely |
| mellow | morose |
| passionate | painful |
| sentimental | tense |
| sympathetic | uncomfortable |
| thankful | worried |
Mood in literature
The following examples highlight the development of different moods in various literary works:
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll: “And the moral of that is—‘Be what you would seem to be’—or, if you’d like it put more simply—‘Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.’”
Carroll utilizes the structure of his sentences and word choice to create a mood that can be seemingly frustrating on the surface with readers trying to comprehend the material. Instead, it becomes playful and whimsical when juxtaposed with the images he creates.
"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe: "Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; / And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor."
Through the use of the setting ("bleak December") and words such as "dying" and "ghost," Poe creates a somber mood, allowing the readers to feel the gloom felt by his speaker.
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare: "But never till tonight, never till now, / Did I go through a tempest dropping fire. / Either there is a civil strife in heaven, / Or else the world, too saucy with the gods, / Incenses them to send destruction."
Shakespeare's word choice of "fire," "strife," and "destruction" develops a mood that is suggestive of discord and friction to highlight the negative atmosphere created by the return of Julius Caesar to Rome.