Explaining the Function of Setting

After characterization, setting might be the most universal and essential literature element. But setting is more than just a location. The College Board states that “Setting and the details associated with it not only depict a time and place, but also convey values associated with that setting." In this lesson, you will learn how the details of a setting help to convey not only the location but also the mood or atmosphere associated with a setting.

How Setting Affects a Story

Look at the following photograph of the English factory town of Leeds from the 19th century:

Smoke and fog over Leeds, English. Caption: Fig 1. - View of Leeds, overlooking Kirkstall Road.

How would you describe the images in this picture? What is emphasized in the photograph? Is there a subtle point that the photographer was making about Victorian factories?

You might notice that the smokestacks tend to dominate the photo as they are much larger than the houses. The houses are non-descript and blur into each other without doors and windows. This creates a sense of claustrophobia and entrapment. Finally, the smoke and pollution make it look hazy and it’s hard to see details. Now imagine what it is like to breathe this air. Ultimately, the point of the image is to show the harmful effects of Victorian factories.

Authors will usually seek to create settings with as much detail as the photograph above. We will explore how they do so with the next activity.

**Excerpt: Hard Times by Charles Dickens**

In order to see how setting can function as more than just a place in a story, let’s look at the following example from Charles Dickens’ novel, Hard Times (1854).

It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage.

It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled.

It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and tomorrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next.

Practice Activity

As you read, pay attention to the function of setting. Create a table in your notes using the following template (one example is included):

Function of Setting in *Hard Times*
Textual Evidence	Function
"unnatural red"	The phrase “unnatural red” suggests that the town is industrial and made of materials and colors that are not natural. Dickens might be suggesting that the make up of this town is harmful, fake, and even corrupted by the industrial setting.
"town...of brick that would have been red if..."	By using a counterfactual syntax (would have...if...), Dickens contrasts what should have been (red brick) with what is (soot covered walls).

Instructions:

Start with listing a textual detail that is less than 10 words—too often students quote too much, where key selection of words would work better.
Finish by explaining how your chosen textual evidence helps to advance Charles Dickens’ purpose to critique Victorian factories.

When you have finished with the table, compare your answers to the examples and ask yourself: 'am I just describing the setting or am I explaining the function or purpose of this setting in detail in relationship to the overall meaning or purpose of the passage?'

[CC BY-NC-SA 4.0] UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED | IMAGES: LICENSED AND USED ACCORDING TO TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION - INTENDED ONLY FOR USE WITHIN LESSON.