Read the following brief passage from The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan.

I returned from the City about three o’clock on that May afternoon pretty well disgusted with life. I had been three months in the Old Country, and was fed up with it. If anyone had told me a year ago that I would have been feeling like that I should have laughed at him; but there was the fact. The weather made me liverish, the talk of the ordinary Englishman made me sick. I couldn’t get enough exercise, and the amusements of London seemed as flat as soda-water that has been standing in the sun. “Richard Hannay,” I kept telling myself, “you have got into the wrong ditch, my friend, and you had better climb out.”

Which of the following best describes the tone created by the author’s use of language in the passage?

(1 point)
Responses

determined and scornful
determined and scornful

formal and sorrowful
formal and sorrowful

joyful and lighthearted
joyful and lighthearted

anxious and fearful

1 answer

The tone created by the author’s use of language in the passage is best described as determined and scornful. The narrator expresses frustration and disillusionment with his situation, reflecting a sense of determination to change it despite a scornful attitude towards his current circumstances.