Mood is the emotional response a reader has to a particular aspect of a work of art or literature. To begin with, the reader joins a man in hiking the Yukon Trail with the hopes of soon being reunited with his friends. The reader understands the geographical setting to be the Alaska/Canada area and the physical setting to be one of extreme cold.
In the opening lines, the reader learns that "There seemed to be...
Mood is the emotional response a reader has to a particular aspect of a work of art or literature. To begin with, the reader joins a man in hiking the Yukon Trail with the hopes of soon being reunited with his friends. The reader understands the geographical setting to be the Alaska/Canada area and the physical setting to be one of extreme cold.
In the opening lines, the reader learns that "There seemed to be an indescribable darkness over the face of things..." and "the sun was absent from the sky" (London 64). This description creates a somber mood, almost a sense of foreboding in the reader.
As the man progresses, the reader learns exactly how cold and unforgiving the environment is as the man's spit freezes before it hits the ground, and his tobacco juice forms a yellow-colored, iced ridge down his beard. Most readers have never experienced cold of this magnitude and may feel a sense of amazement that the man would venture out alone in these conditions.
When the man builds a fire, the reader feels its warmth, but this comfortable mood is soon replaced by the cold and the pain of temperatures so far below freezing. At the point when the man steps in water and must rebuild a fire, the mood changes to one of inevitable doom, punctuated when the snow snuffs out his second fire.
The overall gloomy, isolated and even painful mood of the story acts as a warning to those who do not respect nature's dominion.
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