How do tone and mood differ, and how can close reading help you distinguish them?

• A. Tone is the author's attitude; mood is the reader's emotional response; analyze diction, syntax, and details to separate them.
• B. Tone is the reader's feelings; mood is the writer's background.
• C. Tone and mood are the same thing.
• D. Tone is plot structure; mood is character motivation.

Answer: (B)

Think about what each term refers to in a text. Tone is the author’s attitude toward the subject or toward the reader, and it shows up in how the writer chooses words, the sentence rhythm, and the details that are included or left out. Mood is the reader’s emotional experience while reading—the atmosphere the text creates through imagery, setting, sensory details, and pacing.

Close reading helps you separate them by focusing on two layers at once. First, listen to the language for tone: look at diction (are the words formal, ironic, jingly, biting?), sentence structure (short, abrupt sentences vs. long, flowing ones), and what the author highlights or downplays. Those clues reveal the author’s stance. Then attend to mood: notice the images, settings, sounds, and sensory details that make you feel a certain way as you read. The mood comes from how the language makes you experience the scene, not from the author’s stated attitude.

In other options, mood being the writer’s background conflates effect with origin, which isn’t accurate; tone and mood aren’t the same thing—one is attitude, the other is emotional effect; and tying tone to plot structure or mood to character motivation mixes up different narrative elements.