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Definition of Mood
The mood of a piece of writing is its general atmosphere or emotional complexion—in short, the array of feelings the work evokes in the reader. Every aspect of a piece of writing... read full definition
The mood of a piece of writing is its general atmosphere or emotional complexion—in short, the array of feelings the work evokes in the reader. Every aspect... read full definition
The mood of a piece of writing is its general atmosphere or emotional complexion—in short, the array of feelings the work evokes... read full definition
Mood
Explanation and Analysis:
The mood of “The Paper Menagerie” is melancholy and mournful. The story is made up of a series of vignettes from Jack’s life, most of which contain some element of longing or loss related to Jack’s mixed-race identity and his predominantly white surroundings in Connecticut. He goes from being mocked by his white friend Mark for playing with handmade origami animals to rejecting his Chinese mother’s language and ethnicity to losing his mother (who dies from cancer when he’s in college) to finding a handwritten letter from her years later in Mandarin that he cannot read.
The climax of the story, which comes after Jack desperately searches the streets for someone who can translate his mother’s letter, leads him to finally learn his mother’s life story, as written to him on the inside of one of the paper animals. The mood in this moment is both melancholy and cathartic, as Jack finally feels connected to his mother and their shared language for the first time. The following passage captures the significant mood shift in this moment:
A young woman agreed to help. We sat down on a bench together, and she read the letter to me aloud. The language that I had tried to forget for years came back, and I felt the words sinking into me, through my skin, through my bones, until they squeezed tight around my heart.
Liu’s story primarily uses simple and unadorned language, so the lyrical prose here is notable, as Jack describes how his mother’s Mandarin words sink into him “through [his] skin, through [his] bones, until they squeezed tight around [his] heart.” This poignant description prepares readers for the lengthy and emotional letter to come, as Jack's mother details the unimaginable losses she has experienced in her life, including losing her connection to him after he rejected her and his Chinese heritage as a child. The story ends on a mournful and yet also loving note, as Jack writes the Mandarin character for “love” over and over on the paper below his mother’s letter before refolding the paper into a tiger and walking home.
Related Themes:
