1. Setting: The Background of Place, Objects, and Culture in Stories
ENG 404: AP English Literature and Composition
Unit I: Genre Study – Fiction

2. Setting
Basic Types of Setting *** Literary Uses of Setting

3. Setting = descriptions of places, objects, and backgrounds
Includes characters’ environments
Natural
Manufactured
Political
Cultural
Temporal
What Is Setting?

4. Basic Types of Settings
Public and private places, together with various possessions, are important in fiction, as in life.
Objects and places of human manufacture, construction, and maintenance
Contributes to characterization and verisimilitude
Objects may enter directly into fictional action (plot) and character
Basic Types of Settings

5. Basic Types of Settings
Outdoor places are scenes of many fictional actions.
Take note of
Natural surroundings
Living creatures
Times, seasons, and conditions
May influence and interact with character, motivation, and conduct
Basic Types of Settings

6. Basic Types of Settings
Cultural and historical circumstances often figure largely in fiction.
Historical and cultural conditions and assumptions
Circumstances influence and underscore events, motivations, relationships, etc.
Basic Types of Settings

7. Literary Uses of Setting
Setting is usually essential and vital in the story.
Focus on function of important details
Note the author’s level of detail
Setting augments a work’s realism and credibility.
Establishes realism / verisimilitude
Futuristic, symbolic, and fantastic stories may include places and objects from everyday experience.
Literary Uses of Setting

8. Literary Uses of Setting
Setting may accentuate qualities of character.
Underscores influence of place, circumstances, and time on human growth and change
Can reveal strengths and weaknesses by the ways characters adjust and respond to setting
Setting is a means by which authors structure and shape their works.
Used as means of organizing stories
Framing or enclosing setting = author opens with a particular description and returns to the same setting at the end
Literary Uses of Setting

9. Literary Uses of Setting
Various settings may be symbolic.
Scenes / materials that are highlighted or emphasized may be taken as symbols
Relate prominent elements of setting to ideas, characters, situations, etc.
Setting is used in the creation of atmosphere and mood.
Selection of detail contributes to feeling
Develop mood through
Color and light
Imagery / sensory response
Familiar locales
Literary Uses of Setting

10. Literary Uses of Setting
Setting may underscore a work’s irony.
Establishes expectations that are the opposite of what occurs
Plays up contrast between actions / events and the backdrop against which they occur
Selection of details may guide reader toward one interpretation in order to set up ironic reveal later on
Objects and other elements may be used to foreshadow later events
Literary Uses of Setting

11. Writing about Setting  Notes on setting  General strategies
 Questions to consider
 Organizing your essay
Writing about Setting
The background of place, objects, and culture in literature

12. Notes on Setting There are three basic types of setting
Nature and the outdoors
Public and private places of human construction
Cultural conditions and assumptions
Uses of setting
Establish realism
Contribute to characterization
Act as organizing element
Act as literary symbol(s)
Establish mood or atmosphere
Underscore irony
Notes on Setting

13. Remember, setting is a vital piece of the puzzle when analyzing literature.
In preparing to write about setting, determine the number and importance of locations, artifacts, and customs.
General Strategies

14. How fully are objects described. How vital are they to the action
How fully are objects described? How vital are they to the action? How important are they in the development of the plot or idea? How are they connected to the mental states of the characters?
What connections, if any, are apparent between locations and characters? Do the locations bring characters together, separate them, facilitate their privacy, make intimacy and conversation difficult?
How well done are the visual descriptions? Does the author provide such vivid and carefully arranged details about surroundings that you might even be able to draw a map or plan? Or is the scenery vague and difficult to imagine?
Questions to Consider

15. How important to the plot and characters are shapes, colors, times of day, clouds, storms, light and sun, seasons of the year, and conditions of vegetation?
Are the characters poor, moderately well-off, or rich? How does their economic lot determine what happens to them? How does their economic condition affect their actions and attitudes?
What cultural, religious, and political conditions are displayed and acted upon in the story? How do the characters accept and adjust to these conditions? How do the conditions affect the characters’ judgments and actions?
Questions to Consider

16. What is the state of houses, furniture, and objects
What is the state of houses, furniture, and objects? What connections can you find between this condition and the outlook and behavior of the characters?
How important are sounds or silences? To what degree is music or other sound important in the development of character and action?
Do characters respect or mistreat the environment? If there is an environmental connection, how central is it to the story?
What conclusions do you think the author expects you to draw as a result of the neighborhood, culture, and larger world of the story?
Questions to Consider

17. Organizing Your Essay on Setting
Introduction
Give a brief description of the setting or scenes
Specify the amount and importance of detail
Body
Five basic approaches
Setting and action: Explore the importance of setting in the work
Setting and organization: Discuss how setting connected to the various parts of the work
Setting and character: Analyze the degree to which setting influences and interacts with character
Setting and atmosphere: Analyze the extent to which setting contributes to the atmosphere
Organizing Your Essay on Setting

18. Organizing Your Essay on Setting
Body (continued)
Five approaches (continued)
Setting and other aspects: Consider other literary uses of setting
Choose the approach that best fits the work
Consider setting as illustration and evidence
Conclusion
Summarize major points
Discuss related aspects not considered
Does central idea about setting apply to other major aspects of the story?
Organizing Your Essay on Setting