Blog 5

What is the mood of this novel? Do you find that this novel saddens you in any way? Why?


Excluding the minor moods which present themselves only in some parts of the novel, the mood of the novel is most probably that of loneliness, sorrow, regret, and hope. This does not come to me as a surprise because I believe for a novel to be classified as dystopian, and a good one at that, it must carry all of the moods listed above. Now I will walk you through these moods one by one, and clarify why good dystopian novels must have them.
First of all, it is only natural for dystopian novels to possess a lonely mood because that is what dystopia tends to be—a society without rules or laws, usually because there are no people left to enforce them, and therefore lonely. This is true in ‘The Day of the Triffids’ and the protagonist describes his loneliness in the following words:

It was something which could press and oppress, could distort the ordinary and play tricks with the mind. Something which lurked inimically all around, stretching the nerves and twanging them with alarms, never letting one forget that there was no one to help, no one to care. It showed one as an atom adrift in vastness, and it waited all the time its chance to frighten and frighten horribly.

This lonely mood leads to the sorrowful mood. Throughout the novel, I felt sad and insignificant, for it is at times of loneliness when one begins to think depressing and pessimistic thoughts. But this sadness is not something that stands out like black on white; it is only suggested, and underlies silently during the entire novel. However, there was one particular occasion in the novel where the sadness was so powerful that I had to gulp my tears down. It was the time when the girl from Bill’s large group (assigned by Coker) who offered herself to Bill dies in front of Bill’s eyes. Here are the exact words:

“So futile to have lived at all- and it might all have been so different,” she said. “Good-by, Bill—and thank you for trying to help us.”
I looked down at her as she lay. I felt very angry with the stupidity of death. A thousand would have said: “Take me with you”; but she had said: “Stay with us”.
And I never even knew her name.

Thirdly, regretful moods appear as characters of the novel realize the foolishness of their past actions, and what they should have done. In that sense, this mood is closely related to the hopeful mood as they both happen in the process of realization. Unfortunately, it is my belief that people’s hope for a utopia (which creates the hopeful mood) will never be fulfilled. The reason is because we have proven too many times in history that our evil nature makes us incapable of creating a utopia. Here is an interesting fact to conclude: The very first two human beings have even failed to keep a utopia that was given to us by God—the Garden of Eden.