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What is the mood of the short story "War" by Luis Pirandello?
Quick answer:
The mood of "War" by Luis Pirandello is darkly humorous and ironic, with an underlying sense of tragedy. Characters exhibit detached misery and cope with grief by over-intellectualizing their emotions, creating a farcical tone. The irony peaks when a character argues it is better for their children to die valorously than live to see life's ugliness. The story concludes with stark tragedy as a character's emotional facade breaks, revealing deep sorrow.
The mood of this story is one I would describe as ironic and darkly humorous
while still retaining a core emotion of tragedy. All the characters have a
varying degree of detached misery. As a way to cope with their grief, the
characters over intellectualize their emotions to an almost farcical degree,
adding a dark sense of humor to a tragic situation.
The ironic feeling of the story reaches its peak when the fat man gives his
speech. He makes a rhetorical argument that it is actually better for their
children to die filled with valor than to grow old and see the ugly side of
life as he believes he has. This serves as an ironic punctuation to a series of
arguments about who among them has suffered the worst.
The mood of the play lapses into one of stark tragedy at the very end, where
the silent woman asks the fat man if his son is truly dead. The fat man
realizes how easily his carefully built wall of rationalization can be broken
and breaks down into sorrow.
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