Overall tone: (Tone is how the writer feels, his/her voice) - Thoughtful, pensive, reflective, reminiscent, poignant, regretful, guilty.
The last few phrases, ‘see you soon, Amma’, and ‘smile and smile, and smile….’ suggest a sense of guilt about leaving her old mother behind in Cochin, not knowing if she will be around when she returns from her trip. The figure of speech is repetition, used to stress the word, ‘smile’.
Mood: (Mood is how the reader feels after reading the poem) – Contemplative, nostalgic, anxious, apprehensive, fatalistic, distressed, morose, remorseful, somber, and worried.
How is the mood created in the poem?
The poet describes an incident in her past when she had to leave her mother in Cochin to travel abroad for studies.
The words and phrases that create the mood include, ‘realised with pain’, ‘she was as old as she looked’, ‘familiar ache’, ‘childhood’s fear’, ‘see you soon, Amma’. These words put the reader into a contemplative mood.
The style of writing adds up to the mood. The poet uses a stream-of-consciousness method, she shifts from one thought to another, shift in perspective, as when she looks out of the window to see ‘Trees sprinting, the merry children spilling’. The poem ends in an ellipsis suggesting there is no closure or definitive answer to the question of grief, loss, death and the realisation that all of them are a reality, a fact that we need to accept!
Atmosphere: (Atmosphere is created through a combination of Tone and Mood, setting of the poem, style of writing and the genre of the poem.) – The atmosphere created in the poem is whimsical, sombre, sad, heavy, brooding, dark, morbid, and philosophical. The following expressions, phrases, and words: ‘I saw my mother,…doze, open-mouthed, her face ashen like a corpse’, ‘I looked at her, wan, pale as a late winter’s moon’ create atmosphere. These phrases including similes create an atmosphere of gloom, sadness, and impending tragedy. There is an atmosphere of foreshadowing, and loss, and grief.