Lesson two setting
- 1. Four Types of Setting That You Need to Know courtesy of Discovering Literature
- 2. The Setting as Mirror The setting may mirror a prevailing mood. It may signal or reinforce prevailing emotions. An arid landscape, for instance, may mirror despair or spiritual desolation. Barren hills, scrubby vegetation, and dusty dirt roads may provide a fitting setting for emotionally dried-up characters. However, you cannot always expect a direction connection between the setting and the people who play their roles in it. The setting may be ironic, as when a character feels depressed in a springtime setting. Our sense of irony makes us respond with a grim smile when things do not turn out the way we would like to expect.
- 3. The Setting as Mold The setting of a story often shapes character. It helps make people what they are. Someone growing up on a farm, with its chores, dependence on rain and sun, and closeness to living things, is likely to have a different outlook, a different definition of life, than someone growing up in a neighbourhood where the only open spaces are parking lots. A story may show its characters as creatures of the setting, reflecting its mood, living out its approved ways of acting and thinking. Characters may find themselves trapped in a spiritual wasteland of suburbia, or in a small decaying town that becomes for them the graveyard of hope. On the other hand, a story may show a character rebelling against a stifling environment, struggling to break free.
- 4. The Setting as Escape Escape literature takes us to imaginary settings where we act out daydreams. The story may take us to a mansion in the pre-Civil War South to make us witness scenes of flaming passion. It may take us to ancient Rome to appall us with scenes of treachery and depravity. However, a faraway setting may not really provide an escape; it may be the destination of a journey of discovery. In a strange setting, we may encounter facets of our own personality denied an outlet in our ordinary world.
- 5. The Alien Setting Much modern literature circles back to the loss of roots, the loss of home. You may find yourself in a setting that is inhospitable, like an alien planet. You may identify with the exile, the undesirable, the refugee. In much early-twentieth-century fiction, you encounter the eternal tourist, the expatriate – the person in exile from his or her own country. In the fiction of Franz Kafka, you find yourself in a nightmare setting. As in a bad dream, you may struggle with an environment that defies your best efforts to get control of the situation, to understand what is going on.
- 6. Works Cited Discovering Literature . Ed. Hans P. Guth and Gabriele Rico. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2002. Print.