G-EN270 INTRO TO FICTION
The Elements of Fiction
Setting
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Setting ::
Setting is the place and time of a
story. To set the scene and suggest a
mood or atmosphere for a story’s
events, writers create the illusion of a
solid world in which the plot unfolds.
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“Nothing happens nowhere. A scene
that seems to happen nowhere seems
not to happen at all.”
—Jerome Stern
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Setting includes ::
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Setting includes ::
• Locale (in all its sensuous aspects)
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Setting includes ::
• Locale (in all its sensuous aspects)
• Weather
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Setting includes ::
• Locale (in all its sensuous aspects)
• Weather
• Historical period
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Setting includes ::
• Locale (in all its sensuous aspects)
• Weather
• Historical period
• Season
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Setting includes ::
• Locale (in all its sensuous aspects)
• Weather
• Historical period
• Season
• Time of day
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Setting includes ::
• Locale (in all its sensuous aspects)
• Weather
• Historical period
• Season
• Time of day
• Span of time and pace of its passing
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Setting includes ::
• Locale (in all its sensuous aspects)
• Weather
• Historical period
• Season
• Time of day
• Span of time and pace of its passing
• Social environment (manners, mores, values)
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Our interest in setting is the author’s
use of the pool of images provided by
setting to comment on character and
their actions.
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Setting can ::
Parallel characters and their actions—
that is, be in harmony with them
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Parallel setting :: Example
“…half decayed veranda…near the edge of a
ravine…. a long field that had been seeded for
clover but that had produced only a dense crop of
yellow mustard weeds…the public highway along
which went a wagon filled with berry pickers.… a
cloud of dust floated across the face of the
departing sun.”
—Anderson, “Hands”
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Also consider ::
• Opening paragraphs of “Eveline”
• The closing section of “Shiloh”
• The final section of “The Things They Carried”
• The house and nursery in “The Yellow
Wallpaper”
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Setting can ::
Contrast with characters and their
actions
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Contrasting setting :: Example
“The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny,
with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the
flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass
was richly green.…in the square, between the post
office and the bank…it could begin at ten o’clock
in the morning and still be through in time to allow
the villagers to get home for noon dinner.”
—Jackson, “The Lottery”
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Also consider ::
• The final image of the boat in “Eveline”
• The description of the morning that Ted
Lavender is killed in “The Things They Carried”
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Setting in conflict :: Example
“[O]ur town is five miles from a beach…[but] we’re
right in the middle of town, and if you stand at our
front doors you can see two banks and the
Congregational church and the newspaper store
and three real-estate offices and about twentyseven old freeloaders tearing up Central Street
because the sewer broke again.…there’s people in
this town haven’t seen the ocean for twenty years.”
—Updike, “A & P”
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Also consider ::
• The house in “The Rocking-Horse Winner”
• The fifth paragraph of “Everything That Rises
Must Converge”
• The wallpaper, the nursery, the nailed-down bed
in “The Yellow Wallpaper”