Question

Excerpt from "The Bells"

by Edgar Allan Poe

Stanza 4
Hear the tolling of the bells-
Iron Bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust with their throats
Is a gran.
And the people-ah, the people-
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone-

what is the tone in this excerpt from the fourth stanza of "The Bells"?

A. lonely
B. frightened
C. commanding
D. threatening

Answer 1

The answer is B. "Frightened."

You can draw the conclusion that the author is trying to communicate a frightened tone by the diction of the stanza. The following line of the text states: "In the silence of the night, How we shiver with affright..." This is a very telling detail that supports the idea that the author's tone was meant to be frightening.