Shalla ON Elements of Fiction: What is Setting? And Kate Chopin's The Storm
Round #4 Time to revise my manuscript and make sure its Elements of Fiction: Setting, Character and Symbols shine.
What is Setting?
In award winning literary stories, setting is not just background, it acts like another character that prompts other characters to act; leads characters to realizations or make them reveal their deep nature.
While setting includes the physical environment of a story (house, town, store, locale etc) it is also the time of the story (year, decade, hour, etc) Stories where setting is key make sure the time matters.
Ie. In Kate Chopin’s The Storm, it is because of the time of day (daylight) that makes what happened in the story more surprising.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the fact that the setting is in early 17th century Boston, helps us understand why and how much the adulterous woman who had an illegitimate child shocked the stern, God-fearing New England Puritan community. The reader will not understand it as much if it happened, say, in a modern boisterous city.
Setting can also be regarded as the story’s whole society ie. Beliefs and assumptions of its characters.
Besides time and place, setting can also include weather, especially when the weather is crucial in the story.
For instance, the climate is a substantial character in William Faulkner’s Dry September. After 62 rainless days, a long heat wave has unnerved a small town, causing its main character, an angry white supremacist to become plagued with irritations. One remarks, the weather is “enough to make someone do anything.” When a false rumor circulates that a black man raped a woman it provokes a lynching. This story can only be understood when we take into account that it happened in the 1930’s in a small town in Mississippi during a very bad heat wave.
Regional writers who usually set stories in one geographical area find setting (as physical place) to be vital. These writers bring the setting (as physical place) alive: William Faulkner usually sets his novels and stories in Mississippi; Kate Chopin, Louisiana; Willa Cather, frontier Nebraska; James Joyce, Dublin. They show that setting (as physical place) can profoundly affect the person who grew up in it.
Setting and Character can reveal each other. In Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, Emily’s house, once handsome now “an eyesore among eyesores” surrounded by gas stations, still stands, refusing to evolve with the times in “its stubborn and coquettish decay” reveals Emily's personality.
Setting and Theme can parallel each other. In John Steinbeck’s The Chrysanthemums, the story begins with a fog that sealed off a valley from the rest of the world, a fog like a lid on a pot. (the theme is a woman’s desires and potential closed off)
Setting can be one with Characters, Theme, and Symbols as in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter.
Setting evokes emotion. In Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell Tale Heart, describing the setting in an old, dark, lanter-lit house makes the story more creepy.
Sometimes, setting do not matter all that much. In W. Somerset Maugham’s fable, The Appointment in Sumarra, all we need to know is that it’s set in a marketplace in Bagdad.
So, I read Kate Chopin’s (1851-1904) The Storm and talk about desperate housewives among desperate housewives. Step aside Edie Britt!
The Storm is a scandalous story. I was shocked to find that women in the 1800’s had salacious affairs that rival what we have now. (I should’ve known of course, remember Oedipus?)
No. Cheating with your ex-boyfriend when you’re married while your husband and child are delayed somewhere is not something Jerry Springer promoted for ratings. It’s been going on back in the days—and I mean back, back in the days of our great grandparents and our great, great grandparents.
Like to read The Storm? Click Here
What is Setting?
In award winning literary stories, setting is not just background, it acts like another character that prompts other characters to act; leads characters to realizations or make them reveal their deep nature.
While setting includes the physical environment of a story (house, town, store, locale etc) it is also the time of the story (year, decade, hour, etc) Stories where setting is key make sure the time matters.
Ie. In Kate Chopin’s The Storm, it is because of the time of day (daylight) that makes what happened in the story more surprising.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the fact that the setting is in early 17th century Boston, helps us understand why and how much the adulterous woman who had an illegitimate child shocked the stern, God-fearing New England Puritan community. The reader will not understand it as much if it happened, say, in a modern boisterous city.
Setting can also be regarded as the story’s whole society ie. Beliefs and assumptions of its characters.
Besides time and place, setting can also include weather, especially when the weather is crucial in the story.
For instance, the climate is a substantial character in William Faulkner’s Dry September. After 62 rainless days, a long heat wave has unnerved a small town, causing its main character, an angry white supremacist to become plagued with irritations. One remarks, the weather is “enough to make someone do anything.” When a false rumor circulates that a black man raped a woman it provokes a lynching. This story can only be understood when we take into account that it happened in the 1930’s in a small town in Mississippi during a very bad heat wave.
Regional writers who usually set stories in one geographical area find setting (as physical place) to be vital. These writers bring the setting (as physical place) alive: William Faulkner usually sets his novels and stories in Mississippi; Kate Chopin, Louisiana; Willa Cather, frontier Nebraska; James Joyce, Dublin. They show that setting (as physical place) can profoundly affect the person who grew up in it.
Setting and Character can reveal each other. In Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, Emily’s house, once handsome now “an eyesore among eyesores” surrounded by gas stations, still stands, refusing to evolve with the times in “its stubborn and coquettish decay” reveals Emily's personality.
Setting and Theme can parallel each other. In John Steinbeck’s The Chrysanthemums, the story begins with a fog that sealed off a valley from the rest of the world, a fog like a lid on a pot. (the theme is a woman’s desires and potential closed off)
Setting can be one with Characters, Theme, and Symbols as in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter.
Setting evokes emotion. In Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell Tale Heart, describing the setting in an old, dark, lanter-lit house makes the story more creepy.
Sometimes, setting do not matter all that much. In W. Somerset Maugham’s fable, The Appointment in Sumarra, all we need to know is that it’s set in a marketplace in Bagdad.
So, I read Kate Chopin’s (1851-1904) The Storm and talk about desperate housewives among desperate housewives. Step aside Edie Britt!
The Storm is a scandalous story. I was shocked to find that women in the 1800’s had salacious affairs that rival what we have now. (I should’ve known of course, remember Oedipus?)
No. Cheating with your ex-boyfriend when you’re married while your husband and child are delayed somewhere is not something Jerry Springer promoted for ratings. It’s been going on back in the days—and I mean back, back in the days of our great grandparents and our great, great grandparents.
Like to read The Storm? Click Here
posted by Shalla at 6:59 AM
<< Home