Warm-up: Fill in the following blanks with the correct word.

1. The ________ is both where and when the story occurs. This helps the reader imagine the scene.

2. _____ is created by the language an author uses to show a certain attitude toward his or her subject.

3. _______ is the effect that the story has upon the reader.

Answers to Warm-up: Fill in the following blanks with the correct word.

1. The setting is both where and when the story occurs. This helps the reader imagine the scene.

2. Tone is created by the language an author uses to show a certain attitude toward his or her subject.

3. Mood is the effect that the story has upon the reader.

LESSON 38

Setting, Mood, and Tone

Standards

9RL1F.a: The student locates and analyzes such elements in fiction as language (i.e., diction, imagery, symbolism, figurative language), character development, setting and mood, viewpoint, foreshadowing, and irony.

9RL2.b: The student evaluates how an author’s choice of words advances the theme or purpose of a work.

Additional Information about Setting

Setting can also be more than a description. Setting can play an active role in a story. It can give insight into a character and make clear a conflict. Setting can affect what a character does in a story and the mood of a story. Setting can serve as a symbol of a larger idea. In a person-against-nature conflict, the setting challenges the character.

Additional Information about Tone

Authors create tone and mood through word choice. Like the tone of a speaker’s voice, the manner in which an author tells the story establishes the tone of the writing. A comical tone would be light or humorous like Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. A formal tone would be detailed and precise like Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield.

Additional Information about Mood

A mystery story provokes a frightened or puzzled reaction. A romance should inspire a loving, caring mood. An author creates mood with carefully chosen language and ideas that will not break the mood.

In Summary:

Setting Can:

shed light on a character

explain a conflict

act as a symbol

create a mood

challenge a character

Tone can be Defined by:

types of words the author uses

descriptions of the setting

type of information given

types of characters or action

how characters speak or think

Mood Defined By:

how the story affects the reader

descriptions author provides

atmosphere of the setting

From Sherwood Anderson’s collection of short stories, Winesburg, Ohio

(1)Upon the half decayed veranda of a small frame house that stood near the edge of a ravine near the town of Winesburg, Ohio, a fat little old man walked nervously up and down. (2)Across a long field that had been seeded for clover but that had produced only a dense crop of yellow mustard weeds, he could see the public highway along which went a wagon filled with berry pickers returning from the fields. (3)The berry pickers, youths and maidens, laughed and shouted boisterously. (4)A boy clad in a blue shirt leaped from the wagon and attempted to drag after him one of the maidens, who screamed and protested shrilly. (5)The feet of the boy in the road kicked up a cloud of dust that floated across the face of the departing sun. (6)Over the long field came a thin girlish voice. (7)”Oh, you Wing Biddlebaum, comb your hair; it’s falling into your eyes,” commanded the voice to the man, who was bald and whose nervous little hands fiddled about the bare white forehead as though arranging a mass of tangled locks.

1. What is the setting of this scene from Anderson’s short story?A. a porch B. a carC. a berry patch D. a farm road

Hint: The words field, clover, weeds, highway, and dust help to depict the setting.

Answer: D. a farm road

2. The author of the passage creates a light mood mainly throughA. hints that there is a mysteryB. the description of the settingC. characters’ actions and wordsD. a silly tone that lacks details

Hint: To determine the mood ask yourself how this passage made you feel as a reader.

Answer: C. characters’ actions and words

Group Practice

On the next slide is an excerpt from War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. The narrator visits London after the Martians have attacked the city. While you are reading, look for words that help establish mood, tone, and setting.

(1)The farther I penetrated into London, the profounder grew the stillness. (2)But it was not so much the stillness of death – it was the stillness of suspense, of expectation. (3)At any time the destruction that had already singed the northwestern borders of the metropolis and had annihilated Ealing and Kilburn, might strike among these houses and leave them smoking ruins. (4)It was a city condemned and derelict…

(5)In South Kensington the streets were clear of dead and of black powder. (6)It was near South Kensington that I first heard the howling. (7)It crept almost imperceptibly upon my senses. (8)It was a sobbing alternation of two notes, “Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,” keeping on perpetually. (9)When I passed streets that ran northward it grew in volume, and houses and buildings seemed to deaden and cut it off again. (10)It came in a full tide down Exhibition Road. (11)I stopped, staring towards Kensington Gardens, wondering at this strange, remote wailing. (12)It was as if that mighty desert of houses had found a voice for its fear and solitude.

(13)”Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,” wailed that superhuman note – great waves of sound sweeping down the broad, sunlit roadway, between the tall buildings on each side. (14)I turned northwards, marveling, towards the iron gates of Hyde Park. (15)I had half a mind to break into the Natural History Museum and find my way up to the summits of the towers, in order to see across the park. (16)But I decided to keep to the ground, where quick hiding was possible, and so went on up the Exhibition Road. (17)All the large mansions on each side of the road were empty and still, and my footsteps echoed against the sides of the houses. (18)At the top, near the park gate, I came upon a strange sight – a bus overturned, and the skeleton of a horse picked clean.

The author repeats stillness to emphasize a detail of the setting and to appeal to the reader’s senses.

The use of condemned and derelict both explains the setting and adds mood and tone to the passage.

The notion of a mighty desert of homes describes a wasteland setting and adds a tone of somber sadness for what has been lost.

The strange sight of the horse adds to the mysterious mood while it also describes what the character is seeing and hearing.

1. How does the setting impact the plot?

A. It helps readers to appreciate the type of man this narrator is during a crisis.

B. Readers would not understand the characters’ actions without setting.

C. It shows how a well-known place, London, has been destroyed.

D. It helps to define the threat that the narrator explains as he walks.

1. How does the setting impact the plot?

A. It helps readers to appreciate the type of man this narrator is during a crisis.

B. Readers would not understand the characters’ actions without setting.

C. It shows how a well-known place, London, has been destroyed.

D. It helps to define the threat that the narrator explains as he walks.

2. What mood would the reader MOST likely feel while reading this scene?

A. suspense

B. joy

C. loneliness

D. confusion

2. What mood would the reader MOST likely feel while reading this scene?

A. suspense

B. joy

C. loneliness

D. confusion

3. How does the setting affect the character narrating the passage?

A. It helps him to understand what has happened.

B. It causes him to think about the future.

C. It makes him long for a time passed.

D. It makes him wonder and marvel.

3. How does the setting affect the character narrating the passage?

A. It helps him to understand what has happened.

B. It causes him to think about the future.

C. It makes him long for a time passed.

D. It makes him wonder and marvel.

4. Which words did the author MOST likely use to establish the tone of the passage?

A. “I puzzled over this for a time…”

B. “the profounder grew the stillness…”

C. “great waves of sound sweeping…”

D. “The voice grew stronger and stronger…”

4. Which words did the author MOST likely use to establish the tone of the passage?

A. “I puzzled over this for a time…”

B. “the profounder grew the stillness…”

C. “great waves of sound sweeping…”

D. “The voice grew stronger and stronger…”

5. Which words BEST help to establish the mood in this passage?

A. “nothing above the housetops on the north side”

B. “All the large mansions on each side of the road”

C. “---it was the stillness of suspense, of expectation.”

D. “It came in a full tide down Exhibition Road.”

5. Which words BEST help to establish the mood in this passage?

A. “nothing above the housetops on the north side”

B. “All the large mansions on each side of the road”

C. “---it was the stillness of suspense, of expectation.”

D. “It came in a full tide down Exhibition Road.”

Standards

9RL1F.a: The student locates and analyzes such elements in fiction as language (i.e., diction, imagery, symbolism, figurative language), character development, setting and mood, viewpoint, foreshadowing, and irony.

9RL2.b: The student evaluates how an author’s choice of words advances the theme or purpose of a work.

Exit Slip:

Write one (1) word that you remember from today’s lesson.

Write a phrase about today’s lesson.

Write a summarizing sentence about today’s lesson.

Get with a partner and compare what you have written. Choose what you will share together when called upon.