Submission:
Assignments must be done in Microsoft Word. Combine the writing assignments for this section in single document titled “Setting.” Include your name, class, and Course ID in the paper heading. Save the document as Setting + Your Last Name. Then e-mail the assignments as an attachment [email protected]
Setting – The Artistic and Social Environment
Assignment 1 – Introduction to Setting
Read “Setting” in The Bedford Introduction to Literature, pages 167-169. Assignment: Read Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemingway in The Bedford Introduction to Literature, pages 170-175. Focus on the setting of the story as you read and think about how the setting provides the environment within which the action of the story takes place.
We usually think of setting in terms of time and place. Setting can also be used like harmony in music and backgrounds in painting to create creates the mood or the emotional tone in a work of fiction. In addition,
Meyer tells us “Setting is the context in which the action of a story takes place” (150).
Time
When reading a work of fiction, it is important to establish
the time and place. The time may be a time period like the mythological past as in Oedipus Rex, or the early 20th century in “A Rose for Emily.” It
may be a more specific date like 1919, the year that Harold Krebs returns home
from World War I in Hemingway’s story, “Soldier’s Home.” It could be fall as in In the Lake of the Woods, the “darkest evening of the year” in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” or a spring afternoon as in “The Story of an Hour.” Authors may cover large or small spans of time. The majority of In the Lake of the Woods takes place during the fall in the late 1980’s; however, an important part of the novel focuses on the My Lai Massacre which took place in 1968 during the Viet Nam War. In addition, John Wade’s childhood, John and Kathy’s courtship and marriage, and John’s political career are also covered in the novel. Oedipus Rex takes place over a period of a few hours beginning in the afternoon and ending at night, but there are references to events that span the entire period of Oedipus’s life. “A Sorrowful Woman” spans the period of a year, “Story of an Hour” just an hour on a spring afternoon. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” takes just a few moments on a winter’s evening.
Breaks in the continuity of time are significant. “A Rose for Emily” begins at Miss Emily’s and jumps back and forth between her early, middle, and later life. The breaks in the continuity of time in the story de emphasize the importance of time relationships and place the focus in
the story on the relationship between the townspeople and Miss Emily.
>Assignment 2: In The Bedford Introduction to Literature, read “The Lady with the Pet Dog” by Anton Chekhov (213-224), and “The Lady with the Pet Dog” by
Joyce Carol Oates (227-239). Contrast
the way Chekhov and Oates use time in their stories. Comment on the time period in which the
stories are set as well as the events in the stories are organized.
Place
Place is the second element of setting. A work of fiction may be set in a specific place
that is real like Thebes or
imaginary like Jefferson Mississippi. The place may be general like America
in “A Sorrowful Woman” or a town in Oklahoma
in “Soldier’s Home.” The general setting
of “A Sorrowful Woman” gives us the sense that this story could happen anywhere
in America because the roles of women are narrowly defined everywhere. We can understand the social context better
if we know that the social values are those of a small, Midwestern town at the
end of World War I. Krebs’s desire to move
to Kansas City at the end of the
story, a place where there is more diversity and where he is likely to have
more freedom.
The physical setting
can also be important. Oedipus Rex
takes place in front of the palace at Thebes. The palace doors, the steps leading up to the
doors, and the area at the foot of the steps give the
stage a certain appearance and provide a place for the director and actors to
stage the play. The director can
position Oedipus on the stairs above the people of Thebes
or have him descend to the same level as the people to show the king’s symbolic
relationship to his people. Frost uses
the stairway in “Home Burial” in similar fashion. The wife remains above her husband until he
discovers that she is looking out the window at their child’s grave. Then he ascends the stairs as she cowers
beneath him.
Assignment 3:
Read “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes on page 1071-72 in The
Bedford Introduction to Literature.
Write a paragraph on the significance of the stairways in “Mother to
Son.”
Social Context
The use of time and place can help us establish the social
context of a fictional work. For
example, it is important to know that “The Story of an Hour” takes place at the
end of the 19th century because an understanding of Victorian values
concerning marriage and the roles of women helps explain Louise Mallard’s
reaction to her husband’s reported death and surprising reappearance. In “A Rose for Emily” the townspeople exert a
powerful social force on Miss Emily’s life by taking the place of her father
and insisting that she behave as a member of the old Southern aristocracy
should. They want her to uphold Southern
traditions even though those traditions belong to a bygone era.
Assignment 4: Reread Soldier’s Home” by Ernest
Hemingway in The Bedford Introduction to Literature, pages 170-175. Describe the social context of “Soldier’s
Home” based on the setting of the story.
Consider how Krebs behaves after he returns from World War I in contrast
to how his mother and father think he should behave. Your paper should be 1 or
2 paragraphs.
Social Context, the Social Sciences, and Literary Criticism
You might think social context in terms of the social
sciences – sociology, psychology, history, economics, political science, anthropology,
and geography. In addition, you might
also consider other humanities like religion, ethics, and philosophy. Each of these subjects examines society and
the individual from a different perspective.
In “Soldier’s Home,” Krebs’s mother and father do not understand why he
doesn’t want to “settle down” because they have certain expectations based on
their values. Their values – the values
of small town, middle- America during the 1920’s – are based on social and
religious beliefs about love, marriage, family, work, and success. Krebs, who is returning from post World War I
Germany, brings
with him experiences and values from the outside world. The conflict between these two sets of values
causes the underlying tension in the story.
Traditionally, literary criticism has focused primarily on
artistic qualities. Formalist critics analyze and interpret literature based on
elements of structure, use of language, and tone. More recent approaches to literary criticism,
however, are based on examining the social context from different
perspectives. Marxist critics focus on
issues such as race, social class, and power.
A formalist critic might analyze “Mother to Son” in terms of the use of
the stairway as a metaphor for the mother’s life. A Marxist critic might focus on the mother’s
heroic struggle against racism and economic oppression. The two stairways might be seen as
representing what Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards recently referred to
as “The Two Americas.” In contrast, a feminist
critic might view the mother’s struggle in terms of her gender as well as her
race. Different critical perspectives
help us examine the possibilities of meaning in literary works.
Assignment 5:
Read “Critical Strategies for
Reading
” in The Bedford Introduction to Literature, pages
2029-2052. Write an answer to the
following questions: (1)
Which critical strategies focus on the social context more
than the artistic quality of literary works?
(2) Briefly describe each critical strategy that focuses on social
context. Your paper should be ½ to 1
page.
Tone
Tone might be described as the emotional setting or feel of
a literary work. In the Bedford
Introduction to Literature, tone is defined as “The author’s implicit attitude
toward the reader or the people, places, and events in a work as revealed by
the elements of the author’s style.
Tone may be characterized as serious or ironic, happy or sad,
private or public, angry or affectionate, bitter or nostalgic, or any other
attitudes and feelings that human beings experience” (2144).
As mentioned at the beginning of this section, the emotional
setting of a story is similar to harmony in music or the background in
painting. In music there are a number of
scales, each of which has a certain “tone.”
The major scale has a positive feel, and the minor scale has a negative
feel. The feeling is produced by the
pattern of whole tones and half tones that make up the scale. A C major chord
consists of three tones that are a whole step apart – C E G. A C minor chord, however, is C E-Flat G. There is only a half step between C and
E-Flat, and there are 1 ½ steps between E-Flat and G. This difference creates the minor or negative
feeling.
In painting, backgrounds contribute to the emotional setting. If we look again at “The Straw Hat” by
Reubens, the cloudy background with its dark and light
shades adds to the feeling of uncertainty in the painting. If the woman were placed in a more specific
setting, a court house for example, that background would create a much
different mood. She might appear
frustrated if he thought she was waiting for a decision, and the blush on her
cheeks might suggest anger rather than physical attraction. In “The Ancestors of Tehemana”
the background of strange symbols and primitive figures makes us wonder about
how her heritage and culture contributes to her ability to maintain her dignity
in this foreign costume. She appears to
be seated in an ancient temple, but what if she were
seated in a hospital institution. We
might assume that she was a patient and wonder what was wrong with her. She might appear uncomfortable, sick, vacant,
or sad rather than dignified and comfortable.
Setting also creates an emotional feeling in literary
works. Consider Miss Emily’s house:
“It was a big, squarish frame
house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled
balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what once had
been our most select street. But garages
and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that
neighborhood; only Miss Emily’s house was left, lifting its stubborn and
coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and gasoline pumps – an eyesore among
eyesores. And now Miss Emily had gone to
join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the
cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and
Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson” (91)
The overall impression is one of decay and death, an emotional
feeling that pervades the entire story and resonates with other images of death
and decay such as “the smell,” Emily’s father’s dead body, “the
poison,” and finally Homer’s skeleton in the moldy bridal chamber.
Consider the setting in the film In the Bedroom. Unlike the short story, “Killings,” which is
set in a working class town in Massachusetts, the film is set in Camden, Maine,
a picturesque New England fishing village populated by the well-to-do, an ideal
setting for an ideal family. Scenes at
the beginning of the film are shot “ideal” locations: a field near the ocean,
Matt’s backyard, the interior of Matt’s house, a little league field, a lobster
boat. All of the settings serve to
create a feeling of security, comfort, happiness, and well-being despite the
fact that we note some tensions between Frank and Ruth. As Frank’s relation with Natalie becomes more
serious, and the conflicts among Matt, Ruth, and Frank begin to divide them,
the setting also changes. We see more
scenes of “lower class” life – Natalie’s house and the cannery, scenes that
appear to be in downtown Camden but
were actually taken in Rockport, a more commercial, middle class town south of Camden. The effect is to create two different
settings that reflect two different Americas
- the upper middle class world of Matt and Ruth and the working class world of
Natalie and Richard. When Richard kills
Frank, the two worlds collide. Ruth no longer feels secure in her surroundings,
and Matt feels he must defend their home against Richard’s intrusions. Once Matt commits to killing Richard, the
scenes change. Many are familiar scenes,
but now they are empty. Businesses are
closed, people have gone to bed, there is no traffic on the roads, and Willis’s
ideal retreat becomes the murder scene.
This emptiness serves as the emotional setting and reveals Matt’s
disconnection and isolation from society as a result of killing Richard.
Assignment 6a:
Read Chapter 1-14 in In the
Lake of the Woods
by Tim O’Brien. Write
your response to the different settings in novel. Note that novels like plays
and films often have complex settings.
O’Brien’s novel has several settings.
Discuss the emotional and social context of each setting. Your paper should be 1 to 2 pages. Post your discussion of the Setting on WebCT Discussion 4.
Assignment 6b:
Read the entries in Discussion 4 on WebCT. Revise your analysis of the setting based on what you consider the important points in Discussion 4.
Works Cited
Faulkner, William.
“A Rose for Emily.”
The Bedford
Introduction to Literature.
Ed. Michaeal Meyer. New York:
Bedford St. Martin’s. 2005. 91 .
Meyer, Michael. The
Bedford
Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer.
New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
2005. 2144.