setting

Question 1

setting

Answer 1

time and place and a social environment or milieu

Question 2

temporal setting

Answer 2

time → can be roughly the same as that in which the work was written; can be much later (science fiction) or much earlier (historical fiction)

Question 3

physical setting

Answer 3

place → might be limited to a single locale or it might encompass several disparate ones

Question 4

general setting

Answer 4

the years and the region, country or even the world in which the story unfolds and which often provides a historical and cultural context for the action

Question 5

particular setting

Answer 5

a particular place or type of surroundings where something is or takes place

Question 6

functions of setting

Answer 6

• fiction often relies on setting to establish mood,
  situation and character → can set tone
  
  • emotional impressions
  • can reveal + even shape a character’s personality,
    outlook, and values
  • can occasionally be an actor in the plot
  • often prompts character’s actions
• description of setting may even suggest a key conflcit or theme

Question 7

vague and vivid settings

Answer 7

• setting is not important in some stories - takes place in
  archetypal settings (f.e. a long time ago, in the forest/a
  village/a cottage) → vague settings
  
  • urges reader to see the conflicts and aspects of
    human experience they depict as timeless and
    universal
• in other stories setting can generate conflicts, defines
  the characters, gives the story purpose and meaning
  → vivid settings

Question 8

traditional expectations of time and place

Answer 8

• effects and meanings evoked by setting depend on
  tradition associations and often unconscious
  assumptions
  
  • traditional associations derive in part from literature
    and myth and some are culturally specific
    
    • also come from our learning, our experiences,
      our own specific social and historical context,
      primal instincts and physical conditions as human
      beings
    • authors often draw on such associations
      precisely in order to reverse and question them
      → not only deepens emotional effect of stories
      but also encourages us to rethink our
      assumptions about particular times and places
      and people who inhabit them