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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 2
Explanation and Analysis:
The mood of the novel is somber and oppressive, with occasional moments of dark humor. Faulkner wants the reader to share in the characters’ sense that they cannot escape the history into which they have accidentally been born. One example occurs in Chapter 2, when Faulkner introduces Joanna and describes her uneasy relationship with the rest of Jefferson:
But it is there: the descendants of both in their relationship to one another’s ghosts, with between them the phantom of the old spilled blood and the old horror and anger and fear.
Joanna has not expressly wronged anyone in the town, and all they have done to her is ignore her. However, Faulkner immediately makes it known to the reader that Joanna’s grandfather and brother were murdered 60 years ago right in the town square. Their killer was a former enslaver who wanted them dead because they supported Black voting rights. Joanna and the townspeople see each other as the “descendants” of this violent clash, and they struggle to have a relationship directly with one another instead of with one another’s historical baggage. Even in the absence of outright violence toward one another, their interactions are always attended by “the phantom of the old spilled blood and the old horror and anger and fear.” When characters and readers alike step into Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County, they step into an atmosphere where violence, horror, anger, and fear have all built up over decades.
The dark, oppressive, and even defeatist mood helps Faulkner make a point about history, memory, and Southern culture. Faulkner paints an image of a South that has never and will never resolve the wrongs committed during and prior to the Civil War. The former enslaver who kills Joanna’s grandfather and brother belongs to a group of White Southerners who, long after the Civil War, still see White supremacy as the cornerstone of Southern culture. He has already lost his battle to preserve the institution of slavery, but the fight over Black voting rights just a few decades later is an echo of that same battle. Joanna’s family, on the other hand, are immigrants tracing their roots to Europe, the Northern United States, and Mexico. Joanna’s family holds “foreign” ideas that threaten White supremacy. The passage above, and the mood throughout the novel, plunge the reader into frustration and hopelessness that this cultural clash will ever stop haunting the South.
The greatest hope Faulkner offers is in trying to understand this dynamic and laugh at the foolishness of some people who perpetuate it. For instance, Faulkner invites the reader to laugh at everyone’s intense paranoia over Christmas’s ancestry when it is not even clear whether he is Black or not. What matters is not his actual racial background, but rather the story people tell about him and about race in general. Humor turns back to frustration when the reader understands that the characters will never be able to see how foolish they are.
Related Themes:
