SETTING, THEME, AND MOOD
By Jennifer Chua and Danielle Nacpil
Humanities 1
Prof. Morales
SETTING
 The setting refers to the time and place in
which the event in a work of FICTION,
DRAMA, or NARRATIVE POETRY occur.
 Things to consider:
 TIME may be a historical period, time of year,
and/or time of day or night.
 PLACE may refer to a geographical location, to
a kind of edifice, or to a part of a larger
structure, such as a cave or a particular room.
SETTING
 For example, the main setting of Les
Miserables by Victor Hugo is at the beginning
in 1815 and culminating in the 1832 June
Rebellion in Paris.
Anne Hathaway as Fantine
The Barricades, Les Miserables 2012
SETTING
 Individual episodes within a work may have
separate, specific settings. For example,
Homer’s The Odyssey.
Odysseus And Nausicaä
Odysseus Overcome by
Demodocus' Song, by Francesco Hayez
SETTING
 In some works, the setting is purely imaginary.
For example, C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of
Narnia.
The map of Narnia
Lucy Pevensie enters Narnia
SETTING
 The setting may also shift back and forth
between two contrasting places. For example,
The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan.
From the labyrinth back to the US.
An ideal map of Camp Half-blood
The cover of the 4th book of the
Percy Jackson & The Olympians series
SETTING
 For many works, the
setting is an essential
element in establishing
the ATMOSPHERE of
the story. For example,
Romeo and Juliet,
Shakespeare’s
TRAGEDY of doomed
love and bitter
feuding is set in Italy
during the
Renaissance times.
Italy was to be a land
of passionate
romance and sudden
violence.
Romeo and Juliet’s balcony scene
by Ford Madox Brown
SETTING
 In the most extreme examples of this
connection between setting and plot, the
setting plays a more pointedly SYMBOLIC
role, FIGURATIVELY reflecting the feelings and
experiences of the characters.
 Although the connection between setting
and story is not often so explicit, it is
nonetheless significant. As with other aspects
of NARRATION, an author’s choices about
time and pace exert an important influence
on a work’s TONE and meaning, which the
reader must infer.
SETTING
 In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, each of the
locations in the protagonist’s fictional
autobiography has a SYMBOLIC name:
• Lowood, the charity
school of young Jane,
is located in a LOWlying valley and run by
a tyrannical clergymen
who WOULD wish to
keep the social status
of the hapless orphans
in his charge LOW and
their demeanor
humble.
Lowood school of Jane Eyre
SETTING
• Thornfield, the manor
house of Jane’s
beloved but morally
compromised Mr.
Rochester, is
surrounded by THORN
trees and is also the
site of the trials that she
must undergo-THORNS
in her life-to win
happiness in the end.
Thornfield Hall of Jane Eyre
SETTING
 Jane, who is also the NARRATOR, calls
attention to that METAPHORICAL connection
when she first arrives at Thornfield, before she
has met Mr. Rochester:
“Externals have a great effect on the young: I
thought that a fairer era of life was beginning
for me, one that was to have its flowers and
pleasures, as well as its thorns and toils.”
THEME
 The theme of a literary work is a central idea that
it conveys, either directly or implicitly.
 The term refers to an abstract concept that
recurs in many works of literature-for example,
courtship, the horrors of war, or conflict between
parents and children.
 The narrower meaning of theme is a view or a
value conveyed by a particular literary work,
either by assertion or by implication.
 The theme differs from the subject of the work, a
neutral summary of the characters and events,
and instead expresses a stance toward the
subject as a moral or philosophical principle
inherent in the work.
THEME
 For example, the subject of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane
Eyre is an orphan girl growth to womanhood in
nineteenth-century England. The novel’s themes
include the importance of being true to one’s values
and the transforming power of romantic love.
Georgie Henley as young Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester
THEME
 Some authors’ thematic intentions are asserted
openly, especially in works whose major purpose
is to instruct or persuade. For example, Alexander
Pope’s didactic poem “An Essay on Man” is
meant to teach such principles as morally and
piety. To cite a sample passage:
“Hope humbly, then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher Death, and God adore!
What future bliss, he gives thee not to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
THEME
 In most works, however, a theme emerges by implication
and is conveyed by the choices that the author makes
about the NARRATION and the TONE. For example, one
of the themes of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn is that true morality depends on sympathy for others’
suffering rather than on rules of conduct imposed by
society or organized religion.
 That idea is never stated outright. Instead, it is suggested
by the characters, benevolent and reprehensible, that
the naïve, good-hearted narrator encounters and by his
decision to ignore the legal and societal pressures he is
under to turn in the escaped slave he has taken into
protection.
THEME
 Recognizing a theme can help readers to
compare and contrast works that treat the
same central concept and to articulate the
values and attitudes that underline a given
literary work.
 At the same time, it is important to keep in
mind that simply summing up the themes of
complex poems, plays, and novels cannot
yield their full meaning and literary power.
TONE
 Designates the attitude that a literary speaker
expresses toward his or her subject matter
and audience.
 Listeners attend to a speaker’s tone of voice
in order to assess his feelings about the topic
at hand and about his relationship to his
audience and his conception of their
intelligence, sensitivity and receptivity to his
views.
TONE
 Described in adjectives that express emotion
or manner:
- eg. compassionate or judgmental,
formal or casual, arrogant or obsequious,
serious or ironic, confident or timid
 It may remain consistent, or may change
markedly at some point.
TONE
FACTORS TO CONSIDER:
 SYNTAX
 DICTION
 POINT OF VIEW
 SELECTION OF DETAILS
TONE
In DIALOGUES, because both the listener and
speaker are present, the reader is able to witness
directly the effects and implications of the
speaker’s words.
Example: Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night
Olivia So let me hear you speak.
Viola I pity you.
Olivia That’s a degree to(towards) love.
Viola No, not a grece(step), for ‘tis a
vulgar proof(commonplace). That
very oft we pity enemies.
TONE
 If the speaker in question is the narrator of
a literary work, he or she has an implied
audience, in either the reader or some
invented listener, thus the reader must
note the POINT OF VIEW.
TONE
Point of View
- the pronoun that the narrator uses to recount events
 First-Person Narrator- may be unreliable (biased,
devious, naïve; tone may be misleading)
example: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The
Yellow Wallpaper”
 Third-Person Narrator- whether intrusive or
objective, may adopt a tone that seems
authoritative and neutral
- a surface attitude of objectivity may imply an
underlying meaning at odds with that tone,
creating verbal irony
example: Franz Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist”
TONE
PATHOS
- the evocation in the audience of pity, tenderness,
compassion, or sorrow
Characters exemplifying pathos
- Maria in James Joyce’s “Clay”
*Third-Person Limited Narrator
Other examples:
- Paul Dombey in Charles Dickens’s
“Dombey and Son”
- Beth in Louisa May Alcott’s “Little
Women”
END. 
SOURCES:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_miserables

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Odysseus_And_Nausica%C3%A4__Project_Gutenberg_eText_13725.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Francesco_Hayez_028.jpg

http://onwardstate.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/les-miserables_1.jpg

http://media1.santabanta.com/full1/Hollywood%20Movies/Les%20Miserables/les-miserables-0v.jpg

http://percyjacksonhero.webs.com/Map-of-Camp-Half-Blood.jpg

http://tweenthepages.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/the-battle-of-the-labyrinth3.png

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101228141806/narnia/de/images/c/c5/Narnia_Karte.jpg

http://jollyblogger.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/narnia.jpg

http://ts3.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.5037679932016298&pid=15.1

http://images-01.delcampe-static.net/img_large/auction/000/101/953/356_001.jpg

https://tuckdbimages.s3.amazonaws.com/postcards/images/000/200/315/extra_large/2012_01_25_18_12_17.jpg?1
327623890

http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/25500000/Jane-Eyre-2011-jane-eyre-2011-25511897-19201040.jpg

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/00/31/f1/0031f15cd131bfb30e1b6c2d0844ab2e.jpg