- How does the author’s diction create the tone and mood of the short story? In your explanation, include how the connotative meanings of words chosen by the author affect the mood.
In the story “The Scarlet Ibis” the author has a great choice of words to create the tone and mood of the story. When he started the story he was talking about a bleeding tree. To me that created a sense of sadness and fear. Once Doddle got into the story we would end up understanding what he meant. The narrator said that his brother was crazy (the good kind) and that when he was born he was a disappointment. This makes the readers feel and know that that Doodle wasn't normal like other kids. Then he starts explaining why people had thought that and that he wanted a brother to hang out with but then his mom told him “even if William Armstrong lived”... “he might not, she sobbed, even be ‘all there’”. But one day he watched him look straight at him and grin. He was so happy he ran to his mom saying “Mama, he smiled. He’s all there! He’s all there!”. That made us feel like there was a chance for him. And there was, he then started to learn how to crawl and talk. When Doodle was five his older brother said that he was ashamed that he had a brother that couldn't walk to he made it his goal to teach Doodle how. Once he learned how to walk we felt happy and proud; the whole atmosphere was positive. Well, not until the ending started to approach; the whole ending was depressing. The narrator had been pushing his brother the whole day so they could reach the goal they had set for the first day of school (the day after). The sky was getting cloudy and they decided to go home when it started raining. The narrator started running and doodle tried to keep up because he didn't want to be left alone. But his brother kept running and Doodle got left behind. One the narrator got tired he waited for Doodle to catch up and he didn't appear so he went back to find him. One he found him Doodle was dead and he started to cry. The overall mood was sad and depressing for me.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with all the statements made, but something I would add is how even if you didn't read or understand or focus on what the short story was about, you could say how just skimming through the text, all the exclamation marks and literal meaning of the usage of words helped. I think that is a big part of the mood and tone in the story because if they did not include the exclamation marks or the extreme words, they could read this straight faced like nothing really mattered, like the book has no feeling itself. Otherwise I strongly agree with your points made, because if the characters never said those things, we would have never suspected how things rose and then fell down at the end.
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