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Metaphors
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
Chapter 15
Explanation and Analysis:
The mood of Breakfast of Champions is comic, direct, strange, and occasionally melancholy. It's often a balancing act between the humor and absurdity of the novel's method and the gravity and material importance of its aims to improve American ideas. This combination means that the mood in Breakfast of Champions is often a device for helping readers see the world in new ways.
A good example occurs in Chapter 15:
Earth scientists had just discovered something fascinating about the continent Patty Keene was standing on, incidentally. It was riding on a slab about forty miles thick, and the slab was drifting around on molten glurp. And all the other continents had slabs of their own. When one slab crashed into another one, mountains were made.
Three important factors influence the mood of this passage. The first is the fact that readers likely already know about tectonic plates and how mountains are made; Vonnegut's description, then, articulates something already known in a way that's strange and comic, which makes readers both amused and slightly uneasy. The second factor is the passage's short sentences and unusual words (like "glurp"). These direct and nearly childlike techniques make the passage humorous and easy to understand; they mimic very basic education in a way that alludes to the way Vonnegut wants to reorient the basic understandings of his readers. The third factor is the way this passage consistently decentralizes humanity and human agency. Humans are simply riding around on large slabs of rock, powerless before forces that are capable of making mountains. The decentering of humanity and defamiliarization of the earth create a mood of strangeness and humility.
Broadly, with his short sentences, direct and nearly childlike words and phrases, and decentering of the human, Vonnegut creates a mood that's consistently humorous but also slightly, naggingly disarming. While the humor of the mood matches the novel's form and method, the underlying disarming quality matches its themes. In all, the combination of these qualities help readers see the world with fresh eyes.
