setting essay

Chapter 15 “Setting” – textbook excerpt

The setting of a work of fiction establishes its historical, geographical, and physical context. Where a work is set—on a tropical island, in a dungeon, at a crowded party, in the woods— influences our reactions to the story’s events and characters. When a work takes place— during the French Revolution, during the Vietnam War, today, or in the future—is equally important. Setting, however, is more than just the approximate time and place in which a work is set; setting also encompasses a wide variety of other elements.

Clearly, setting is more important in some works than in others. In some stories, no particular time or place is specified or even suggested, perhaps because the writer does not consider a specific setting to be important or because the writer wishes the story’s events to seem timeless and universal. In other stories, a writer may provide only minimal information about setting, telling readers little more than where and when the action takes place. In many cases, however, a particular setting is vital to the story, perhaps influencing characters’ feelings or behavior, as it does in the stories in this chapter.

Sometimes a story’s central conflict is between the protagonist and the setting—for example, Alice in Wonderland, a Northerner in the South, an unsophisticated American tourist in an old European city, a sane person in a psychiatric hospital, a moral person in a corrupt environment, an immigrant in a new world, or a city dweller in the country. Such a conflict may drive the story’s plot and also help define the characters. A conflict between events and setting—for example, the arrival of mysterious stranger in a typical suburban neighborhood, the intrusion of modern social ideas into an old-fashioned world, or the intrusion of a brutal murder into a peaceful village—can also enrich a story.

Setting can be analyzed in a variety of ways. Readers can examine the historical, geographical, or physical settings of a story.

• HISTORICAL o A particular historical period, and the events and customs associated with it,

can be important to your understanding of a story; therefore, some knowledge of the period in which a story is set may be useful (or even essential) for readers. The historical setting establishes a story’s social, cultural, economic, and political environment. Consider, for example, the cultural significance of Maggie’s and Dee’s different views regarding family heirlooms in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” or the social significance of the treatment of women in the time period in respect to the treatment of the narrator and her emotional state in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

• GEOGRAPHICAL o In addition to knowing when a work takes place, readers need to know

where it takes place. Knowing whether a story is set in the United States, in Europe, or in a developing nation can help to explain anything from why language and customs are unfamiliar to us to why characters act in ways we find surprising or hold beliefs that are alien to us. Even in stories set in the United States, regional differences may account for differences in plot development and characters’ motivation.

• PHYSICAL o Physical setting can influence a story’s mood as well as its development. For

example, time of day can be important. The gruesome murder described in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” (p. 328) takes place in an appropriate setting: not just underground but in the darkness of night.

o Whether a story is set primarily indoors or out-of-doors may also be significant: characters may be physically constrained by a closed-in setting or liberated by an expansive landscape. Some interior settings may be psychologically limiting. For instance, the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” feels suffocated by her room, whose ugly wallpaper comes to haunt her. In many of Poe’s stories, the central character is trapped, physically or psychologically, in a confined, suffocating space. Some exterior settings like the tough terrain pose obstacles for a character such as in Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path.”

o The various physical attributes of setting including elements such as time of day, weather, or indoor/outdoor placement of the action combine to create a story’s atmosphere or mood.

Checklist for Writing about Setting

• Is the setting specified or unspecified? Is it fully described or only suggested? • Is setting just background, or is it a key force in the story? • Are any characters in conflict with their environment? • How does the setting influence the story’s plot? Does it cause characters to act? • In what time period does the story take place? How can you tell? What about social,

political, or economic situations or events of the historical period might influence the story?

• In what geographical location is the story set? Is this location important to the story?

• At what time of day is the story set? Is the time important to the development of the story

• Is the story set primarily indoors or out-of-doors? What role does this aspect of the setting play in the story?

• What role do weather conditions play in the story? • What kind of atmosphere or mood does the physical setting create? • How does the story’s atmosphere influence the characters? Does it affect (or reflect)

their emotional state? Does it help explain their motivation?

The Setting Essay

The setting essay will be a traditional five-paragraph essay with an introductory paragraph with a thesis statement, three body paragraphs that discuss various aspects of the setting of the short story, and a concluding paragraph. For this setting essay, you are to select a story in which historical, physical, or geographical settings shape characters and events. You can choose to write about any one of those elements of the setting or a combination of the elements. For example, the essay can approach simply the historical significance of the setting in all three body paragraphs or a combination of the elements such as two body paragraphs on the geographical elements of the setting and one on the physical. You can focus on simply one area or “mix and match” the three areas (historical, geographical, and physical) as you see fit.