Read the excerpt below and answer the question. I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She was with me
in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone. Very little communication ever took place between us. Death soon ended what little we could have while she lived, and with it her hardships and suffering. She died when I was about seven years old, on one of my master’s farms, near Lee’s Mill. I was not allowed to be present during her illness, at her death, or burial. She was gone long before I knew anything about it. Never having enjoyed, to any considerable extent, her soothing presence, her tender and watchful care, I received the tidings of her death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger. Which best describes the tone of this excerpt? NOT B
A) angry and impassioned
B)dignified and logical
C)eloquent and proper
D)sorrowful and despondent
Answer: The right answer is the D) sorrowful and despondent.
Explanation: Just to elaborate a little on the answer, it can be added that, on the one hand, the tone using by the narrator is sorrowful, since he is describing an arguably sad escenario—a child who only sees his mom at night and who loses her when he is only about seven years old, and a mom whose life was saturated with hardships and suffering and who could not provide her child with the attention that he needed. On the other hand, the tone is also despondent or dispirited, since the child recalls that when informed of the death of his mother he felt the same emotions he would have probably felt at the death of a stranger. The excerpt from the life of Frederick Douglass exudes restrained sorrow and dejection.
