Tone and Mood

Tone and mood in a narrative create the overall sense of feeling in a narrative. Depending on how a writer expresses the tone in a narrative, exemplifies the overal emotion in a narrative. Authors express their sense of tone and mood by the diction of adjectives they use. The adjectives create descriptions for various meanings in a narrative, thus illustrates and paints a picture for the reader. Tone is also very similar to theme, as it usually resembles closely to the overall theme of the narrative.

Diction

Diction is pivotal to the make up of a narrative. It is the choice of words an authors uses to express all that he wishes. Diction goes beyond what a word actually means. For instance, a word may have a meaning past simply the “denotation” of a word. Authors are able to express use which ever word they may, to equal what ever he or she want it to mean. That is the intricacy of diction. For instance, in Hamlet, The ghost says “But soft, behold! Lo, where it comes again? I’ll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!”. The ghosts presents a shift in tone here. The author is able to do this by utilizing his own personal kind of diction. By shakespeare doing this, he emmulated fear in his speech. He wants to incorporate this “fear” because shakespeare is presenting a ghost, and is trying to give it the ghost “ghostly” like attributes.

Imagery / Figurative Language

Figurative language is commonly used by authors to add emphasis on certain parts of poetry. In essence, figurative language is any language that it not literal. Many poet’s use figurative language because they like to add deeper meanings to idea/themes that they will be discussing in their works. However, imagery, kind of the opposite, is based on solid realistic descriptions (or language), in relation to the five senses. Author’s use these two techniques to make a connection in their poetry, and attempt to make their poetry more easily understandable. For example, in “Ozymandias”, Shelley utilizes imagery and figurative language when she states “sneer of cold command” and “wrinkled lip”. She uses the world “wrinkled” to deepen the meaning and description of the “lip” which she is referring to, or in this case, the statue of Ozymandias. Shelley also compares the “sneer of cold command” to describe the facial expression of the statue. We the readers can concur that the statue is not in the happiest expression when Shelley states “frown”, ultimately assuring the readers about the current state of the statue.

Sound

Sound is very important in the “flow” of a poem. Depending on which devices authors decide to use, creates a smoother path for the poem to follow. Authors use literary devices including enjambment, rhyme scheme, meters, alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, and many more to create in-depth analysis of certain parts of poetry. For example, in “To An Athlete Dying Young”, Housman utilizes many end rhymes to create his own personal rhythm. His rhyme scheme, iambic tetrameter, allows his poem to flow line to line creating a soothing ring to the overall sound of the poem. Also, Housman uses many caesura techniques in this poem. Caesura is a pause somewhere within a line of poetry, which allows the reader to pause (or take a breath), while reading the poem. Authors personalize this scheme simply to create their own flow (pattern) they want readers to follow while reading their respective poetry.

Symbol

Writers use symbols in their literary work usually to deeper the meaning of certain parts of the narrative. More or less, a symbol in a narrative usually acts as allusions. They connect usually what is being mentioned "literally" in the text, to some other reference, which the author is trying to make connection about. Symbols also creates extreme depth in the analysis part of certain topics. For instance, in all poems dealing with "carpe diem", authors usually make a connection to "flowers", or "nature" at some point. For example, in "To his Coy Mistress", Andrew Marvell states the line "My vegetable love should grow". Marvell compares the momentary love he has for his mistress, (when she is not acting coy), and compares it to the vegetation and prosperity of a flower's development. He wants the love shared between the couple to prosper and last forever. This exemplifies how time is not constant, but precious and should not be wasted.