Mood (literature)

Elements

Mood is generally created through several different things. Setting, which provides the physical location of the story, is used to create a background in which the story takes place. Different settings can affect the mood of a story differently and usually support or conflict with the other content of the story in some way. For example, the desert may be a setting for a cowboy story and may generate a mood of solitude, desolation, and struggle, among other possible associations. The attitude of the narrator is another element that helps generate mood. As the reader is dependent on the narrator's perspective of the story, they see the story through their lenses, feeling the way the narrator feels about what happens or what is being described. Embedded in the attitude of a narrator are the feelings and emotions which make it up. A similar element that goes into generating mood is diction, that is, the choice and style of words the writer uses. Diction conveys a sensibility as well as portrays the content of a story in specific colors, thus affecting the way the reader feels about it.