Name: ________________________
Identifying Mood
Directions: Read each passage and choose the appropriate mood word. Then, explain your answer by
showing which text from the passage creates the mood.
Mood – The feeling created in the reader’s mind by a literary work. Setting, tone, and events influence mood.
Suggested Mood Words: mournful, despairing, silly, calm, triumphant, desolate, gloomy, dreadful, boring,
1. The Bully by Paul Langan:
On Friday morning, Darrell headed to the supermarket parking lot with ten dollars. The four-block
walk from home felt like the longest walk he had ever taken. Each step required great effort, as if his
feet were made of concrete. Even the money in his pockets felt uncomfortably heavy, and every
muscle in his legs and back felt slow and achy. It was as if his body was quietly protesting what he
was doing. Darrell knew that paying Tyray was wrong. The shame and guilt he felt for giving his
mother’s money to a bully swept over him in unending waves.
What is the mood of the passage? _______________________________________________________
Why do you feel this way?
2. Animal Farm by George Orwell
A little way down the pasture there was a knoll that commanded a view of most of the farm. The
animals rushed to the top of it and gazed round them in the clear morning light. Yes, it was theirs—
everything that they could see was theirs! In the ecstasy of that thought they gamboled round and
round, they hurled themselves into the air in great leaps of excitement. They rolled in the dew, they
cropped mouthfuls of the sweet summer grass, they kicked up clods of the black earth and snuffed its
rich scent. It was as though they had never seen these things before, and even now they could hardly
believe that it was all their own.
What is the mood of the passage? _______________________________________________________
Why do you feel this way?
3. “Buffalo Dusk” by Carl Sandburg
The buffaloes are gone. / And those who saw the buffaloes are gone. / Those who saw the buffaloes
by thousands and how they / pawed the prairie sod into dust with their hoofs, / their great heads down
pawing on in a great pageant / of dusk, / Those who saw the buffaloes are gone. / And the buffaloes
are gone.
What is the mood of the passage? _______________________________________________________
Why do you feel this way?
4. The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe,
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung
oppressively low in the heavens, had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary
tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the
melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was --but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense
of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I looked upon the scene before me --upon the mere house,
and the simple landscape features of the domain --upon the bleak walls --upon the vacant eye-like
windows --upon a few rank sedges --and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees --with an utter
depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation. What was it --I paused to think --what
was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher?
What is the mood of the passage? _______________________________________________________
Why do you feel this way?
5. “The Bean Eaters” by Gwendolyn Brooks
They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair. / Dinner is a casual affair.
Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood, / Tin flatware.
What is the mood of the passage? _______________________________________________________
Why do you feel this way?
6. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
The Buddha went quietly on his way, lost in thought. His peaceful countenance was neither happy nor
sad. He seemed to be smiling gently inwardly. With a secret smile, not unlike that of a healthy child,
he walked along, peacefully, quietly. He wore his gown and walked along exactly like the other
monks, but his face and his step, his peaceful downward glance, his peaceful downward-hanging hand,
and every finger of his hand spoke of peace, spoke of completeness, sought nothing, imitated nothing,
reflected a continuous quiet, and unfading light, an invulnerable peace.
What is the mood of the passage? _______________________________________________________
Why do you feel this way?
7. My Glider by Jack Prelutsky
My glider is graceful, / my glider is grand, / I launch it aloft / with a flick of my hand.
It smoothly ascends, / then it pauses and swoops, / it hovers in space / and turns intricate loops.
What is the mood of the passage? _______________________________________________________
Why do you feel this way?
