SETTING

WHAT IS SETTING?
Setting is a work's natural, manufactured,
political, cultural, and temporal environment,
including everything that characters know and
own.
Characters may be either helped or hurt by their
surroundings, and they may fight about
possessions and goals.
Further, as characters speak with each other,
they reveal the degree to which they share the
customs and ideas of their times.
Three Basic Types of Settings
NATURE AND THE OUTDOORS ARE IMPORTANT LOCATIONS
FOR MANY WORKS

The natural world is an obvious location for the

action of many stories, plays, and narrative poems.
It is therefore important to note natural surroundings
(hills, shorelines, valleys, mountains, meadows,
fields, trees, lakes, streams);
living creatures (birds, dogs, horses, snakes);
and also the times, seasons, and conditions in
which things happen (day or night, summer or
winter, sunlight or darkness, wind or stillness, rain or
snow, fogginess or clarity, heat or cold, dryness or
humidity, storminess or calmness)--any or all of
which may influence character and action.
 OBJECTS OF HUMAN MANUFACTURE AND
CONSTRUCTION ARE VITALLY IMPORTANT IN MANY
WORKS

To reveal or highlight qualities of character, and

also to make narratives lifelike, authors include
many details about objects of human
manufacture and construction.
Houses, both interiors and exteriors, are
common, as are possessions, such as walking
sticks, kitchen tables, park benches, distant
lights, necklaces, hair ribbons, and rocking
chairs.
CULTURAL CONDITIONS AND ASSUMPTIONS
FIGURE SIGNIFICANTLY IN WHAT
CHARACTERS DO AND SAY

Just as physical setting influences

characters, so do historical and cultural
conditions and assumptions
The Importance of Setting
A CREDIBLE (reasonable) SETTING HELPS ESTABLISH LITERARY
CREDIBILITY

One of the major purposes of literary setting is to

establish realism or verisimilitude.
As the description of location and objects
becomes particular and detailed, the events of
the work become more believable.
Even futuristic, symbolic, and fantastic stories,
as well as ghost stories, seem more believable if
they include places and objects from the real
world.
Though they make no pretenses to everyday
realism, their credibility is enhanced because
their settings are so realistic.
 SETTING MAY BE A STRONG GUIDE TO
CHARACTER

Setting may intersect with character as a

means by which authors underscore the
importance of place, circumstance, and
time on human growth and change.

The way characters respond and adjust to

setting can reveal their strength or
weakness
 AUTHORS MAY USE SETTING AS AN
ORGANIZING ELEMENT IN MANY WORKS

An author may often use setting to

organize a work graphically
Another organizational application of
place, time, and object is the framing or
enclosing settings, whereby a work begins
and ends with descriptions of the same
scene, thus forming a frame or an
enclosure
SETTINGS MAY SERVE AS LITERARY
SYMBOLS

If the scenes and materials of setting are

highlighted or emphasized, they also may
be taken as symbols through which the
author expresses ideas.
SETTING MAY BE USED TO ESTABLISH A WORK'S ATMOSPHERE
Setting also helps to create atmosphere or mood, which
refers to an enveloping or permeating emotional texture
within a work.

Most actions require no more than a functional

description of setting.

Thus, taking a walk in a forest needs just the statement

that there are trees. However, if a story includes
descriptions of shapes, light and shadow, animals, wind,
and sounds, you can be sure that the author is creating
an atmosphere or a mood for the action (as in
Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown").

There are many ways to develop moods. Descriptions of

bright colors (red, orange, yellow) may contribute to a
mood of happiness.
The contrast of such bright colors with darkness
and dark colors, as in Poe’s “The Cask of
Amontillado,” may invoke gloom or augment
hysteria.

References to smells and sounds further bring

the setting to life by asking additional sensory
responses from the reader.

The setting of a story in a small town or large

city, in green or snow-covered fields, or in
middle-class or lower-class residences may
produce responses to these places that
contribute to the work's atmosphere.
SOME AUTHORS USE SETTING IRONICALLY

Just as setting may reinforce character

and theme, so also it may establish
expectations that are the opposite of what
occurs. The colorful and orderly garden
described in Lowell's poem "Patterns," for
example, is an ironic background for the
speaker's deep anguish and grief
POINT OF VIEW
 WHAT IS POINT OF VIEW
Point of view is the particular voice, angle
of vision, or perspective from which the
work is told.

The point of view affects how the author

reports information; narrates action;
describes characters, settings, objects and
emotions; or even interprets or judges
these elements.
1. POINT OF VIEW IN FICTION
(1)
The first-person point of view is presented by a
character who narrates the story using “ I."
This character may be either a major or minor
character.
The first-person collective narrator usually uses
the word “we” and representing community
Some first-person narrators are unreliable, e.g.
in “The Yellow Wallpaper”
(2)

Third person point of view

If the third-person point of view is omniscient,
the narrator has unlimited knowledge of the
events and characters.
This narrator may even report what the
characters are feeling and thinking.
This narrator knows the past and present and
perhaps the future.
Omniscient narrators may also interrupt the
narration to interpret, evaluate, or judge the
characters and their actions.
The limited omniscient narrator is usually
limited to knowing one character

Unlike the omniscient point of view which

lets readers examine the thoughts,
feelings, and motives of all the characters,
with limited omniscience our responses to
all characters are formed through a single
perspective.
The objective point of view is achieved
through reporting factual detail, only that
which can be perceived by the senses.
Objective narrators never intrude to
evaluate, interpret, or judge characters
and their actions
Severely objective narration is called the
dramatic point of view. The narrator
functions much like a "fly on the wall" — a
spectator to the events.
 Point of View in Poetry
Poetry may also rely on point of view to convey
experience and meaning.
You might refer to the narrator as the "speaker"
in the poem.
Many poets create first-person narrators for their
speakers.
When reading poetry, you need to distinguish
between the poet and the speaker. Of course,
some poets are the speakers of their own poems
 Point of View in Drama
Plays, too, can have point of view
In Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, the
events are told from the memory of Tom Wingfield.
As the play opens, Tom enters the stage and
reveals, "I am the narrator of the play, and also a
character in it.
The other characters are my mother, Amanda, my
sister, Laura, and a gentleman caller who appears in
the final scenes.“
Tom perceives the actions from the point of view of
one who was desperately trapped by an overbearing
mother and an all-too-sensitive sister.
THE END