Setting Notes

 Setting: (Notes) 

 Time, place, and social environment that frame the characters

 Establishes the world in which the character’s act

 Context in which the action of the story occurs

 (Can be a construct – made to illicit character’s actions/responses)



 Can prompt characters – bring them to realizations, cause them to reveal their inner natures



 1'''. Setting is locale''':   physical environment of a story – a house, street, city, landscape, region. Modern movement to set stories in the future – to critique the present in a non-threatening manner.

 Ex. Henry James believed the place in which an event occurs was an equal to the moment that occurred there. – it had a part to play.



 2. Setting is time:   hour, year, season, century

 dawn or winter – plays a part in the action of the story and in the response of a character.

 Setting sun – death

 Scarlet – Opens amid a puritan wasteland – rigid mores, strict codes, and judgemental landscapes – we see Hester – she brings color and passion into the sterile setting – we gravitate towards her life and energy – she is our retreat from the hollow religion that exists within.



<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> 3. Setting is Weather:

<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> Climate – Never Just Rain – the moment Tess loses her control and her innocence in set amid the fog in the moors.

<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> Joyce’s “The Dead” – shade falls on the snow encased Dublin – covers the “living and the dead” – great equalizer

<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> Heat – always catalyst for violence – especially in Faulkner’s “Dry September” and Gaines’s works

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<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> 4. Setting is social Construct:   

<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> Constitutes external reality that engulfs or surrounds the internal reality of the protagonist

<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> Exotic places – Out of Africa, The English Patient – fertile soil breed passion and romance

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<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> 5. Setting as Symbol/ Archetype:

<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> The Crossroads

<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> The Fog

<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> The Castle

<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> Heaven and Hell

<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> The Garden

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<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">''' 6. Setting can reveal subverted norms – '''

<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> Writers can reverse traditional settings to reveal a different agenda.

<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> Tranquil garden – scene of a horrific murder

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<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> Questions:

<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> 1. Where does the story take place?

<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> 2. What does the setting suggest about the character’s lives?

<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> 3. Are there significance differences in the settings for different characters? What does this suggest about each person?

<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> 4. When does the story take place? Is the time of year or time of day significant?

<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> 5. Does the weather play a meaningful role in the story’s action?

<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> 6. What is the protagonist’s relationship to the setting? Does it creative a strongly positive or negative location?

<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> 7. Does the setting of the story in some way compel the protagonist into action?

<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> 8. Does the story’s time or place suggest something about the character or the protagonist?

<p class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"> 9. Does a change in setting during the story suggest some internal change in the protagonist?

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