Passage The main character of this passage from a novel is Ree, a teenager living in the Ozark Mountains in
Missouri
(1) The snow fell first in hard little bits, frosty white bits blown sideways to polt Roo's face as she raised the
ax, swung down, raised it again, splitting wood while being stung by cold flung from the sky (2) Bits worked
inside her neckline and melted against her chest. (3) Ree's hair was shoulder-length and full with
ungovernable loose curls from temples to neck and snow bits gathered in the tangle (4) Her overcoat was
an implacable black and had been Mamaw's, grim old wool battered by decades of howling winter and
summer moths (5) The buttonless coat fell past her knees, below her dress, but draped open and did not
hamper her chopping strokes (6) Her swings were practiced and powerful, short potent whacks (7)
Splinters flow, wood split, the pile grew (8) Ree's nose ran and the blood came up in her face and made
pink on her cheeks (9) She pinched two fingers high on her nose, snorted a splat to the ground, dragged a
sleeve across her face, swung the ax again
(10) Once the pile of splits became big enough to sit on, she did (11) She sat with her long logs close
beneath hor, booted feet spread wido, pulled headphones from a pocket and clamped them over her ears,
then turned on The Sounds of Tranquil Shores (12) While frosty bits gathered in her hair and on her
shoulders she raised the volume of those ocean sounds (13) Ree needed often to inject herself with
pleasant sounds, stab those sounds past the constant screeching, squalling hubbub rogular life raised
inside her spint, poke the soothing sounds past that racket and down deep where her tonng soul paced
on a stone slab in a gray room, agitated and endlessly provoked but
bring a moment's rest. (14) The tapes had been given to Mom whout yearning to hear something that might
sounds and did not care to confront these, but Roe tried them and felt something unknot (15) She also
favored The Sounds of Tranquil Streams, The Sounds of Tropical Down, and Alpine Dusk
(16) As the frosty bits dwindled the wind slowed and big snowflakes began falling as serenely as anything
could fall the distance from the sky (17) Roe listened to lapping waves of far shores while snowflakes
gathered on her (18) She sat unmoving and let snow etch her outline in deepening clean whiteness
From Dar Woodret Winter Bone 2005 by De Wood
Question
The mood in the final paragraph (sentences 16-18) is best described as
tranquil
cautious
optimistic
sullen