Is it Tone or Mood?
I don't know about you, but I can easily write a descriptive scene of a mom growing more and more angry with her kid. I would describe the mom with her arms crossed and her mouth in a firm line. She'd tap her foot with impatience and yell to her kid, 'Get downstairs. Right. Now.'
Tone
“There was no moon, and everything beneath lay in misty darkness: not a light gleamed from any house, far or near all had been extinguished long ago: and those at Wuthering Heights were never visible…”
A depressing mood
The way I look at it, someone needs to start doing something about disease. What's the big deal? People are dying. But the average person doesn't think twice about it until it affects them. Or someone they know.
It's an example of a casual tone.
The space travelers were travelling to the moon, when their spaceship suddenly ran out of fuel. They were all frightened to learn that they wouldn’t be able to return to Earth, and could only land on the moon.
(Theme of fear)
The storm was thundering outside, causing everyone in the house to shudder. We were all scared sensless. Although we were all hyper a few hours ago, everything turned to dread when we watched the news.
“Gimmerton chapel bells were still ringing; and the full, mellow flow of the beck in the valley came soothingly on the ear. It was a sweet substitute for the yet absent murmur of the summer foliage, which drowned that music about the Grange when the trees were in leaf.”
A calm and peaceful mood
This was the last fish we were ever to see Paul catch. My father and I talked about this moment several times later, and whatever our other feelings, we always felt it fitting that, when we saw him catch his last fish, we never saw the fish but only the artistry of the fisherman.
In A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean loss is also addressed with a kind of acceptance. The tone here is wistful, yet peaceful and moving towards acceptance nonetheless.
When the astronaut landed on the moon, he felt loneliness. Thinking there was no one else, he became a little forlorned, though the view of Earth was stunningly beautiful.
(Theme of lonesomeness)
Our eyes were closed, excitement building within us. They said the surprise would be good. A puppy? A kitten? What could it be? They told us to open our eyes, and to our surprise, Mother was holding a letter. Father and Mother looked happy and joyfull.
"We're moving!" they exclaimed and my smile dropped. My siblings looked terrified too.
Mood
On Grandma’s swaying porch, feet planted firmly on the top step, I feel her smile, hear her laugh, see her wrinkled eyes. Screen door swings on rusty hinges and I smell her famous peach cobbler.
“Well, come on,” mother says and I walk in, past the reverend with the urn.
Something bliss surrounded by pain, and grief.
It was very late and everyone had left the cafe except an old man who sat in the shadow the leaves of the tree made against the electric light. In the day time the street was dusty, but at night the dew settled the dust and the old man liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet and he felt the difference.
In Hemingway's A Clean, Well-Lighted Place the tone is calm and peaceful.
The immigrant looked around to talk to somebody, but could find no one who spoke his language. He felt claustrophobic and desolate.
(Theme of hopelessness)
I gasped for breath, and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly, more vehemently but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why WOULD they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men, but the noise steadily increased. O God! What COULD I do? I foamed -- I raved -- I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder -- louder -- louder!
In the following excerpt from Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," notice the many adjectives and verbs that imply insane, nervous, and guilty tones.
The bus was travelling at a great speed when it was stopped by a gang of robbers. The passengers were ordered to get out, leaving their precious belongings in the bus.
(Theme of fear)
And the trees all died. They were orange trees. I don't know why they died, they just died. Something wrong with the soil possibly or maybe the stuff we got from the nursery wasn't the best. We complained about it. So we've got thirty kids there, each kid had his or her own little tree to plant and we've got these thirty dead trees. All these kids looking at these little brown sticks, it was depressing.
Consider the tone of The School by Donald Barthelme. Here, words like "death" and "depressing" set a negative or unhappy tone.
All the family members were dressed in black, with somber faces. They were participating in the funeral ceremony of their deceased relative.
(Theme of gloom)