1. Recognizing Tone and Mood
Mrs. Keller
AP Lang
Elkmont High School
Recognizing Tone and Mood

2. What’s the distinction?
TONE: the emotion or attitude towards the subject which the author feels and tries to express through his/her writing
MOOD: the feeling an alert, intelligent, educated, sensitive reader feels when s/he reads the writing

3. How does one recognize TONE and MOOD?
First, you must read the piece (probably more than once)
Then, you must ask yourself what the EFFECT is (this requires a sensitivity to the emotional undertones of words)
Trust your instinctive reaction to a piece, but it’s always a good idea to check by looking consciously at the elements of the piece, especially since satiric/humorous tones frequently pretend to be serious when they are not.
Be alert to the possibility that the tone may change within a piece!

4. What are the elements of the piece that contribute to TONE/MOOD?
All of those things the typical AP question asks you to consider—choice of detail, diction, imagery, syntax—can be used to create tone
Basically, you must begin with the assumption that everything in the piece was consciously and deliberately included by the author and that the author had a particular effect in mind when s/he wrote the piece
It is VITAL that you determine whether the tone is SERIOUS, HUMOROUS, IRONIC, OR SATIRICAL. This will determine how you interpret your evidence. If there seems to be an inordinate number of incongruities, the tone is probably not serious.

5. What to look for…
WORD CHOICES, especially in terms of the emotional overtones or connotations of words and phrases
REPETITIONS of words, phrases, details, etc. (if the author calls your attention to something by referring to it or using it more than once, it’s probably important and possibly symbolic or connotative)

6. What to look for…
ELABORATIONS of descriptions, scenes, etc. (if the author spends a lot of time/space on something, s/he probably considers it important to his/her meaning)
INCONGRUITIES of details, images, word choice, level of language, connotations, roles, or juxtapositions—anything that doesn’t seem to fit should be looked at very carefully before being dismissed as a mistake. One popular form of incongruity is IRONY, the deliberate reversal of the reader’s expectations.

7. What to look for…
OMISSIONS of material that seemingly should be there—often what a writer doesn’t say is as revealing as what is there.
PATTERNS of imagery, connotations, details—even when things are not exactly repeated, you can find similarities (lots of images taken from nature, for example) that may add up to an overall impression.

8. What to look for…
ALLUSIONS: the 3 greatest sources of allusion in Western literature are Shakespeare, the Bible, and Greek/Roman mythology. Many of these have become standard symbols (ARCHETYPES) and, as such, have standard connotations, which the author expects the reader to “catch”.

9. Technical Vocabulary
The second big issue for many students is knowing what to call the tone they find
I’ve given you a list of “tone words,” but these won’t be very helpful unless you see them in action
Rest assured we will have plenty of opportunities to expand and refine our understanding

10. A Strategy for Reading and Writing
SOAPSTone (Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, Tone) is an acronym for a series of questions that students must first ask themselves, and then answer, as they begin to plan their compositions.

11. SOAPSTone Who is the Speaker? (The voice that tells the story)
What is the Occasion? (The time and place of the piece; the context that prompted the writing)
Who is the Audience? (The group of readers to whom the piece is directed)
What is the Purpose? (The reason behind the text)
What is the Subject? (State the subject in a few words or phrases)
What is the Tone? (The attitude of the author)