© Victor Ochieng’
vochieng.90@gmail.com
Tone, mood and attitude – are three thrilling things tested in the literary or comprehension poem, which predominantly comes in KCSE English Paper Two, question three. These three things commonly pose chilling challenges to students and some teachers of English. It is what prompted the penman, Son of the Lake to write right about them.
Tone, mood and attitude – as poetic aspects – are intimate, interrelated and intertwined. That is, they are close cognates – connected in nature and structure. In poetic lingo and language, tone is the quality of voice. Attitude is the feeling towards somebody or something. Mood is the state of the mind. In poetic parlance, mood is also the atmosphere created or ambience.
It is obvious that when a certain tone is used, it creates a specific mood, which in turn gives rise to a type of attitude. In the whole scheme of things, tone is easily identified from the words welded well and diction used by the poet. Diction refers to skillful choice and use of words in language and literature. There are two categories of diction: Denotative (surface meaning) and connotative (deep meaning). Tone can be identified with ease based on diction employed by the poet. Consequently, once tone is established, attitude and mood follow in a picture-perfect order.
Tone – Quality of Voice
Tone is the quality of voice expressing a particular emotion or attitude. When you talk about a particular topic, you do it in a particular manner. For instance, a mother talking to the child may decide to do it in a loving manner. This manner is known as ‘tone’ – quality of voice. Therefore, tone should not be confused with intonation (cadence), which is the rise and fall of voice in oration and rendition. When talking to friends, you use an informal tone. When the student goes to the staffroom to pick raft of instructions from teachers, a formal tone is used. Comedians at the Churchill Show use a jocular tone. Preachers and teachers mix tones, which can be: Encouraging, advisory, informative, et cetera.
Therefore, tone reveals a person’s feelings towards his subject. A man talking to the love and laugh of his life, may choose to use a loving or gentle tone. On the other hand, a person talking about exploitation, corruption or a gourmandizer, may use hateful, scornful or sarcastic tone.
Other tones can be sad, angry, witty, bitter, happy, satirical, pompous, gloomy, serious, defiant, cheerful, hilarious, romantic, and more. There are four ways to identify tone used in a poem. One, focus on the subject matter – the tone of the conversation depends mainly on what people are talking about. If they are discussing a pleasant topic, the tone will absolutely reflect this fact. Two, put puissance on diction – choice and use of words. If the people in question are happy with each other, they will use words that focus on happiness and bliss. But if they are annoyed with each other, they will pick words that express great disgust. Three, there is the pace or rhythm of the conversation. At times, when people are irked, the pace of their speech augments. But in a more relaxed conversation, the pace nose-dives. In such instances, there is a puissant impact on quality of voice. Four, there is pitch, which boils down to highness or lowness of voice of people involved in the conversation.
Moreover, students should be in a position to identify words to use when describing the tone of the speaking voice – persona. For instance, when the persona has a sense of joy, jubilance, satisfaction or pleasure, the tone can be happy. When someone is full of approval and appreciation, the tone will be – an admiring tone. Being frank, honest and without hesitation – the tone is forthright.
Consider the poem War is Kind by Stephen Crane: Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind/Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky/And the affrighted steed ran on alone/Do not weep/War is kind. This poem has an ironic tone. For right from the title, we know that the speaker’s attitude is not what s/he says. War brings to our mortal minds death and destruction. In the vile valley of death, lives are lost and properties are destroyed. To be kind, is to show care, to express love and largesse towards people. Therefore, it is clear like crystal – the two words – war and kind – cannot collocate.
Attitude – feelings of the persona
Attitude refers to the nature of thoughts, views and feelings – the speaking voice in a poem (persona) has towards the subject matter, or even the action in the poem. It is purely petty and pedantic to describe the persona’s attitude as positive or negative. They are very general, obscure, sketchy and relative in meaning. Therefore, it is advisable for students to focus on more specific adjectives to qualify the general notion. In our book Nuts and Bolts of Poetry, we have classified types of attitude. For instance, attitudes of pleasure, which include: peaceful, contented, pleasant, jubilant, elated, et cetera. Attitudes of self-importance are: proud, boastful, pompous, confident, profound, and many more.
Mood – atmosphere created
Mood is the state of mind of the speaker in the poem. It is also the atmosphere that surrounds the poem – the ambience. For instance, when the poem talks about the theme of love, then the mood can be romantic. But if it is focusing on jilted or estranged lovers, the mood can be nostalgic. In a funeral, the mood is pensive, sombre or melancholic.
When you see a person with a bright face, wearing a mile-wide smile, you can swiftly say that s/he is in good mood. Such a person can use pleasant words. The person may also appear relaxed and composed. Though, it is important to note. A poet may choose to write about a sad subject in a way that elicits gales of laughter. That is, pen a satirical piece. Anyway, in order to establish the mood, you ought to study the manner in which language is used. Also, take note of the feelings that the poem stirs up, what the poem evokes in the mortal minds of the reader(s).
Consider the poem: New Widow’s Cry by Denise Barlow: With the gloom of a new widow/I kneel/I stretch my arms to heaven/I raise my eyes to the sky/My voice cries out in agony/The pain, the grief/The sorrow I feel/can’t be the same than those before/Me have felt/Why is my pen so raw/So great that it makes my heart bleed/Why are my eyes so wet/Wet with endless streams of bitter tears/Why is it so hard to take/The news of my husband’s death.
In this poem, the persona is a widow lamenting the loss of her husband. The mood is a very sad one: We can feel her agony, pain and grief. The mood is enhanced through the use of such phrases as ‘my pain so raw… It makes my heart bleed.’
The writer is the co-author of Nuts and Bolts of Secondary Poetry.
