Style, Tone & Mood in The Landlady

1. STYLE

Style is the use of literary devices, tone, and mood in a particular way that makes author’s writing recognizable. In another word, the style of writing is the style of author who writes it. The author’s style can be recognized by the following components:

• Personal word choice or vocabulary
• Types of sentences
• Point of view from which the text is told
• Organization of the text

To analyze an author style, we need to consider the point of view, formal or informal writing, structure of text, level of complexity in the writing, and overall tone. By using these features in writing, different meaning of the content are shown to the audience.

Categories of Style

Formal Style

The following are some characters of formal style:

• Vocabulary: high-level; business-like
• Organization of text: very structured; perhaps with subtopics
• Audience – usually 3rd-omnisicient point of view
• Sentences: structure varies (simple sentence/compound sentence/complex sentence)

Informal Style

The following are some characters of informal style:

• Vocabulary: low-level; perhaps slang; dialogue style
• Organization of text: more so narrative or note-like
• Audience: usually personal (more first or third-limited point of view)
• Sentences: mostly simple or compound sentences

Organization of Text

Writing is organized in various ways, depending upon the author’s purpose: to inform, to entertain, to express a belief or opinion, and to persuade.

Text usually falls within one of these types of organizational patterns:

• Cause - Effect
• Problem - Solution
• Chronological (sequencing the order of events)
• Compare/Contrast
• Inductive (specific to general)
• Deductive (general to specific)
• Division into categories
• Ranking

2. TONE

TONE: the way feelings are expressed

one is the author’s attitude toward the writing (his characters, the situation) and the readers. A work of writing can have more than one tone. An example of tone could be both serious and humorous. Tone is set by the setting, choice of vocabulary and other details.

Identifying the tone is all about knowing the definitions of many descriptive vocabulary words.

In literature an author sets the tone through words. The possible tones are as boundless as the number of possible emotions a human being can have. Has anyone ever said to you, "Don't use that tone of voice with me?" Your tone can change the meaning of what you say. Tone can turn a statement like, "You're a big help!" into a genuine compliment or a cruel sarcastic remark. It depends on the context of the story.

3. MOOD

MOOD: (sometimes called atmosphere) the overall feeling of the work

ood is the general atmosphere created by the author’s words. It is the feeling the reader gets from reading those words. It may be the same, or it may change from situation to situation.

Mood is the emotions that you (the reader) feel while you are reading. Some literature makes you feel sad, others joyful, still others, angry. The main purpose for some poems is to set a mood.

Writers use many devices to create mood, including images, dialogue, setting, and plot. Often a writer creates a mood at the beginning of the story and continues it to the end. However, sometimes the mood changes because of the plot or changes in characters.

Examples of moods include: suspenseful, joyful, depressing, excited, anxious, angry, sad, tense, lonely, suspicious, frightened, disgusted, etc.

STYLE, TONE, AND MOOD

OF LANDLADY

1. STYLE OF LANDLADY

Informal style is applied in the short story Landlady. The style can be recognized by these components below:

• Personal word choice or vocabulary:

The short story Landlady uses low level vocabulary many dialogues.

Example: ..he got to Bath.., But the air was deadly cold…, and “Well, you see…”.

• Types of sentences:

Types of sentences used in Landlady mostly are simple and compound sentences

Example: Billy was seventeen years old. He was wearing a new navy blue overcoat, a new brown trilby hat, and a new brown suit, and he was feeling fine.

• Point of view:

The short story Landlady uses third person limited point of view. This use is to hide the intention of the landlady character which is to kill Billy Weaver character. For comparison, if the author uses the first person point of view so that the intention will reveal since the beginning of the story.

• Organization of the text:

Narrative style is used in the short story Landlady.

2. TONE OF LANDLADY

Some tones that are in the short story Landlady are as the following:

• “…nine o'clock in the evening and the moon was coming up out of a clear starry sky. But the air was deadly cold and the wind was like a flat blade of ice on his cheeks.” shows a sinister tone.
• “even in the darkness, he could see that the paint was peeling from the woodwork on their doors and windows, and that the handsome white facades were cracked and blotchy from neglect.” shows a scary tone.
• “He had never stayed in any boarding houses, and, to be perfectly honest, he was a tiny bit frightened of them.” shows a fear tone.
• “BED AND BREAKFAST, it said. BED AND BREAKFAST, BED AND BREAKFAST, BED AND BREAKFAST. Each word was like a large black eye staring at him through the glass, holding him compelling him.” shows a queer or weird tone.
• “she gave him a warm welcoming smile.” shows a gracious tone.
• “She seemed terribly nice. She looked exactly like the mother of one's best school friend welcoming one into the house to stay for the Christmas holidays.” shows a gracious tone.

Analysis of Landlady tone

As an analysis for the tone in the landlady, it will be explained one of the tones above; darkness. Darkness above in the short story Landlady gives a scary tone. It is for darkness above gives the meaning of a dark evening where the character Billy Weaver walking around alone at a place he have never been before. Also looking at his background he is still a 17 years old boy. Therefore this word darkness chosen to create a situation of a scary tone is very much appropriate and perfect to get the feeling of the story.

3. MOOD OF LANDLADY

There are two moods created in the short story Landlady; suspicious and surprising.

Here are some parts of the story that lead us to feel suspicious:

• "I was wondering about a room."

"It's all ready for you, my dear," she said.

• "I should've thought you'd be simply swamped with applicants," he said politely.

"Oh, I am, my dear, I am, of course I am. But the trouble is that I'm inclined to be just a teeny weeny bit choosy and particular; if you see what I mean".

• "But I'm always ready. Every­thing is always ready day and night in this house just on the off chance that an acceptable young gentleman will come along. And it is such a pleasure, my dear, such a very great pleasure when now and again I open the door and I see someone standing there who is just exactly right." She was half way up the stairs, and she paused with one hand on the stair rail, turning her head and smiling down at him with pale lips. "Like you," she added, and her blue eyes travelled slowly all the way down the length of Billy's body, to his feet, and then up again.
• "Well, you see   both of these names, Mulholland and Temple, I not only seem to remember each one of them separately, so to speak, but somehow or other, in some peculiar way, they both appear to be sort of connected together as well. As though they were both famous for the same sort of thing, if you see what I mean   like . . . well . . . like Dempsey and Tunney, for example, or Churchill and Roos­evelt." "How amusing," she said.
• Now and again, he caught a whiff of a peculiar smell that seemed to emanate directly from her person. It was not in the least unplea­sant, and it reminded him   well, he wasn't quite sure what it reminded him of. Pickled walnuts? New leather? Or was it the corridors of a hospital?

Here are some parts of the story that lead us to feel surprising:

• “But my dear boy, he never left. He's still here. Mr Temple is also here. They're on the third floor, both of them together.”
• “Excuse my asking, but haven't there been any other guests here except them in the last two or three years?”

“No, my dear,” she said. “Only you.”

Analysis of Landlady Mood

The mood of suspicious:

• "I should've thought you'd be simply swamped with applicants," he said politely.

"Oh, I am, my dear, I am, of course I am. But the trouble is that I'm inclined to be just a teeny weeny bit choosy and particular; if you see what I mean".

“someone … who is just exactly right”, "Like you,"

Based on the story the inn owned by the landlady offers a very cheap price with quite a nice place to stay in. However, from the conversation above we can see that there is no guest in the inn. The landlady then explains that she is just a teeny weeny bit choosy and particular; she chooses someone who is just exactly right like Billy Weaver. It should be confusing why should be an inn choosy about its guests and why should be the guests like Billy weaver? In addition, the landlady had never been met Billy Weaver so how come she could say that the guests for her inn should be like him?

Therefore, this situation leads the reader to feel suspicious that there is something wrong and definitely there is something going on.

The mood of surprising:

• “But my dear boy, he never left. He's still here. Mr Temple is also here. They're on the third floor, both of them together.”

There is a part in the story when Billy Weaver assumes that Mr. Mulholland and Mr. Temple had left but then the landlady said that they never left. They are still in the inn on the third floor. This part is very surprising to the character Billy Weaver as well as to the readers. There is no one who would stay in an inn for years so it leads us to an assumption of that they are already dead.

(by Arief Febriyanto, Moch Fajar Akbar, Willy Adjie)