What are negative connotations?

Question

I have to do a summer reading packet, and it tells me to highlight the negative connotations. I looked up connotations in the dictionary and it gave me this "Something suggested by a word or thing; the suggesting of a meaning by a word apart from the thing it explicitly describes."

I guess I just don't know what they look like. Can you help me? I'll give you the first two paragraphs of the story.

"It was in the clove of seasons, summer was dead but autumn had not yet been born, that the ibis lit in the bleeding tree. The flower garden was stained with rotting brown magnolia petals and ironweeds grew rank amid the purple phlox. The five o' clocks by the chimney still marked time, but the oriole nest in the elm was untenanted and rocked back and forth like an empty cradle. The last graveyard flowers were blooming, and their smell drifted across the cotton field and through every room of our house, speaking softly the names of our dead.

It's strange that all this is still so clear to me, now that summer has long since fled and time has had its way. A grindstone stands where the bleeding tree stood, just outside the kitchen door, and now if an oriole sings in the elm, its song seems to die up in the leaves a silvery dust. The flower garden is prim, the house a gleaming white, and the pale fence across the yard stands straight and spruce. But sometimes (like right now), as I sit in the cool, green-draped parlor, the grindstone begins to turn and time with all its changes is grounded away- and I remember Doodle." - "The Scarlet Ibis"

Answer 1

Connotation is the meaning we attach to a word beyond its standard definition.  A writer pays special attention to connotations by choosing certain words over others in order to convey a theme.  For example, while one person may describe a field as "very quiet" another may say it is "dead silent."  The second description is an example of a phrase with a negative connotation.  Although a "very quiet" field would seem like a nice place for a picnic, someone might want to avoid a "dead silent" one.  In the story you have attached, phrases such as "rotting brown magnolia petals" and a nest that "rocked back and forth like an empty cradle" leave the reader with a much darker impression of the scene than the beautiful flowers and singing birds that we typically associate with a "flower garden."

Answer 2

Oh, this will be easy!

First, you know what negative means.  And now you know what connotations means -- that is, the suggestions made by certain words.

So when I read words like dead, bleeding, stained, rank, untenanted, empty cradle, etc., those have "negative connotations" for me.  You too perhaps?

That is what they want you to highlight, I would say.

Answer 3

a negative connotation is something that suggests that something is bad by the way it's said or the wording used

in you're extract i would say that "the flower garden was stained" is a negative connotation because the word "stained" suggests that the garden has become worse

good luck =)

Answer 4

You can see negative connotations in the choice of words used:

summer was DEAD

BLEEDING tree

STAINED with ROTTING brown

EMPTY CRADLE

GRAVEYARD flowers

It is just describing a scene, but the words carry connotations of death, decay, and loss/ isolation from other people.