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Irony
Definition of Mood
The mood of a piece of writing is its general atmosphere or emotional complexion—in short, the array of feelings the work evokes in the reader. Every aspect of a piece of writing... read full definition
The mood of a piece of writing is its general atmosphere or emotional complexion—in short, the array of feelings the work evokes in the reader. Every aspect... read full definition
The mood of a piece of writing is its general atmosphere or emotional complexion—in short, the array of feelings the work evokes... read full definition
Mood
Explanation and Analysis:
The mood of “A Good Man is Hard to Find” has some significant shifts over the course of the story. Like many of O’Connor’s stories, this one starts off on a mundane, almost dull note. As the family sets off on their road trip, there is some low-stakes familial conflict about where they should go and if they should stop for food, but, for the most part, the first half of the story is quite calm. The following passage—which comes near the middle of their road trip—captures this monotonous mood:
When the children finished all the comic books they had brought, they opened the lunch and ate it. The grandmother ate a peanut butter sandwich and an olive and would not let the children throw the box and the paper napkins out the window. When there was nothing else to do they played a game by choosing a cloud and making the other two guess what shape it suggested.
Here the narrator reports on the mundane details of the road trip—the children read their comic books and eat lunch, the grandmother eats a sandwich and manages the children, they all play a tedious game of deciding what the clouds look like.
Nothing in this scene suggests that this entire family will end up dead by the end of the story, which is part of why this story is an example of Southern gothic literature—like most horror stories, the macabre elements that come later in the story are rendered more powerful because they have been juxtaposed with the low-stakes, everyday scenes that came before.
Related Themes:
