Setting:
Setting refers to the textual markers that anchor a narrative in a particular place and time. For instance, we might say: “The settings of Hemingway’s most famous novels map a particular post-WWI geography of Europe; his protagonists typically shuttle back and forth between urban gathering spots for American and British exiles and the rural landscapes where these exiles meet and interact with locals.” Setting thus plays an important role in establishing versimilitude, in helping to delineate characters, and in shaping plot and action. (The Russian critic, M.M. Bakhtin, tried to capture this spatial-temporal dynamic by focusing on the “chronotope” of stories and genres.) Setting can obviously also play a central role in developing the thematic patterns of a story.
Modes of setting
There are three main modes of setting:
Scope: Scope refers to the extent or range – – broad or narrow – – of a setting and can be analyzed along three axes:
- social: the class, ethnic, gender, national markers of a place.
- geographic: the location(s) of a narrative in terms of natural geography (lakes, oceans, mountains, plains, etc.) and in terms of human geography (nations, cities, neighborhoods, etc.)
- spatial: the phsyical organization of a particular setting (bedroom, living room, kitchen; or, dining room, kitchen, pantry; or, deck, cabin, hold; etc.)
For example: “The setting of ‘The Yellow Wall Paper’ is quite narrow; most of the action in the story takes place in the attic of an old mansion, located in the New York City suburbs and now occupied by a middle-class couple.”
Span: Span refers to the extent or range – – broad or narrow – – of time in a narrative and can be analyzed along two axes:
- historical: the period, era, or dates during which a narrative takes place (i.e. late 19th-century America, the Middle Ages, the year 2525, etc.)
- duration: the length of time which elapses in a narrative (two days, a fortnight, a decade, two hours, etc.)
For example: “The setting of ‘The Yellow Wall Paper’ is quite narrow; most of the action occurs over one summer in late 19th-century America.”
Semiotic: Semiotic simply refers to the relation between or among settings in a narrative and points to at least two relations:
- thematic: the possible ways in which the relation between or among settings helps to establish or delineate broader thematic elements of a narrative (i.e. city vs. country and decadence vs. simplicity, or nursery vs. bedroom and immaturity vs. adulthood, etc.)
- structural: the ways in which settings are arranged according to generic or cultural conventions (i.e. the saloon, the range, and the homestead in the Western, or the ship and the port in travel narratives, etc.)