Setting
Fiction can be defined as character in action at a certain time and place. The
first two elements of this equation, character and action, have already been
discussed. Now we turn our attention to setting, a term that, in its
broadest sense, encompasses both the physical locate that frames
the action and the time of the day or year, the climatic conditions,
and the historical period during which the action takes place. At its
most basic, setting helps the reader visualize the action of the work. There
are, however, many different kinds of setting in fiction and they function in a
variety of ways.
Some settings are relatively unimportant. They serve as little more than
incidental and decorative backdrops. Some others, on the other hand, are
intimately and necessarily connected with the meaning and unity of the total
work. It is with these that we must be chiefly concerned. The most important
fictional settings are those that are “dramatic’, for those are organic and
essential parts of the work as a whole.
In order to understand the purpose and function of setting, the reader must
pay particular attention to the descriptive passages in which the details of
setting are introduced. Generally speaking, unless such passages are
intended merely as local color, the greater the attention given to them, the
greater their importance in the total work. In most short stories and in many
novels, setting is established at or near the beginning of the work as a
means of orienting the reader and framing the action that is to follow. Where
the emphasis on setting in such passages is slight, as it is, for example, in
most of Hemingway’s short stories, or where the setting once established is
then referred to again only incidentally, if at all, one can assume that setting
as such is subordinate to the author’s other concerns and purposes. If, on the
other hand, the emphasis on the setting in early passages is substantial, and
if similar references to the setting recur periodically as a kind of echoing
refrain, one can reasonably assume that the setting is designed to serve
some larger function in relation to the work as a whole.
The quality of the language by which the author projects the setting provides
another clue as to his or her intention. When that intention is to invest the
setting with a photographic vividness that appeals essentially to the reader’s
eye, the detail of the setting will be rendered through language that is
concrete and denotative. On the other hand, the author may want us to
“feel” rather than simply “see” the setting, as is the case when setting is to
be used as a means of creating atmosphere. In that case the appeal will be
to the reader’s imagination and emotions through language that is
connotative, emotionally heightened, and suggestive. Often the author will
want the reader to both see and feel the setting and will use the resources of
language to bring about both effects simultaneously.
The Function of Setting
Setting in fiction is called on to perform a number of desired functions which
are not mutually exclusive. In many works of fiction, setting can and does
perform a number of different functions simultaneously. On the following
pages we shall discuss some of these functions that seem most prominent.
1. SETTING AS BACKGROUND FOR ACTION.
British author Elizabeth Bowen once remarked: “nothing can happen
nowhere”. For this reason, fiction requires a setting or background of
some kind, even if it only resembles the stage set of a daytime
television soap opera. Sometimes this background is extensive and
highly developed, as in many historical novels. In other cases, as in
many modern short stories, setting is so slight that it can be dispensed
with a single sentence or must be inferred altogether from dialogue
and action. When we speak of setting as background, then, we have in
mind a kind of setting that exists largely for its own sake, without any
clear relationship to action or characters, or at best a relationship that
is only tangential and slight.
To see whether setting acts as an essential element in the fiction, or
whether it exists merely as a decorative and functionless background,
we need to ask ourselves this: Could the work in question be set in
another time and another place without doing it essential damage? If
the answer is yes, then the setting can be said to serve as a decorative
background whose function is largely irrelevant to the purpose of the
work as a whole.
2. SETTING AS ANTAGONIST.
Often, the force of nature functions as a causal agent or antagonist,
helping to establish conflict and to determine the outcome of events
(as is the case in many Jack London’s stories set in the severe climate
of the north).
3. SETTING AS A MEANS OF CREATING APPROPRIATE ATMOSPHERE.
Many authors manipulate their settings as a means of arousing the
reader’s expectations and establishing an appropriate state of mind for
events to come. No author is more adept in this respect than Edgar
Allan Poe. In his “The Fall of the House of Usher” the room, which Poe
skillfully makes us both see and feel, is as “inaccessible” and “gloomy”
as its owner and as such establishes an appropriate mood that
anticipates and foreshadows our eventual meeting with Roderick
himself.
4. SETTING AS A MEANS OF RELEVANCE CHARACTER.
Very often the way in which a character perceives the setting, and the
way he or she reacts to it, will tell the reader more about the character
and his state of mind than it will about the setting itself. This is
particularly true of the works in which the author carefully controls the
point of view.
An author can also clarify and reveal character by deliberately making
setting a metaphoric or symbolic extension of character. For example,
he house in which a character lives may be a perfect representation of
its owner- occupant. In other words, the setting and the character may
be minor images of each other.
5. A NOTE ON SETTING IN TIME.
Setting can also be used as a means of reinforcing and clarifying the
themes and ideas of a novel or short story. Such is, for instance,
setting in time.
In most of the preceding items we have emphasized the physical
aspects of setting at the expense of the temporal ones. But the time of
day, time of year, or period in history at which a given event or series
of events occurs can also contribute importantly to setting. If we think
a moment, we shall discover that many of the most climatic moments
of fiction, in fact, seem to take place at night, as if to suggest that it is
after the rest of the world is asleep that we stand ready to reveal the
essential truths about ourselves to the worlds. In much the same way,
certain seasons of the year lend themselves more to certain kinds of
events than to others. Authors often use the cycle of the year and the
cycle of the day to establish setting precisely because of the traditional
association with the successive cycles and models in human life:
spring-morning-youth (optimism); summer- noon-maturity (spiritual
and physical strength); autumn-fall- evening-old age (pessimism,
weakness); winter-night-death (the end of everything).
In support of our suggestion, we shall just quote from Hemingway: “In
the fall the war was always there”.