Student Question
In Chains, what mood is created through the figurative language and how does the author create it?
Quick answer:
In Chains, the most common mood found in the novel is one of fear and foreboding. The author uses various metaphors, hyperbole, and imagery to build the mood of the text. Chapter 14 has strong examples of this, because it depicts a group plotting to assassinate George Washington. They use similes to describe revolutionaries as "beasts" who they need to crush.
Mood is a literary device that describes how the author creates feelings in a reader. Mood can sometimes be confused with tone. Tone is the attitude of the writer or narrator about a subject or person. Mood is focused on the reader. The feelings that mood gives readers are created through words and descriptions as well as setting and theme. Mood is also commonly referred to as the "atmosphere" of a piece.
Chains is a great story, and there are multiple moods created throughout the piece. I would have to say that the mood is often fearful, ominous, and/or foreboding. Those moods make sense to the narrative; the story is about an enslaved girl seeking to escape her bondage to the evil Locktons during the American Revolutionary war.
If you need a chapter that has solid examples of figurative language being used to develop ominous feelings, then I recommend looking in chapter 14. This is the chapter in which Isabel overhears Lockton, Goldbuttons, and the mayor plotting to assassinate George Washington. The men use hyperbole when they speak about the need to "smash this rebellion into dust." The men use a simile to describe how their strategy needs to make the rebellion "wither like a vine cut off at the roots." They also speak using metaphors when they talk about the need to cut off the head of the large "beast" that is the rebellion.
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