1. Setting

2. What is setting?
The natural, manufactured, political, cultural, and temporal environment, including everything the characters know and own.

3. Or…
Time
Place
Mood (atmosphere)

4. Time
Can include not only the historical period- past, present, or future-but also a specific year, season, or time of day.

5. Place
May involve not only the geographical place, but also the social economic, or cultural environment.

6. How would “Harrison Bergeron” have been different if the story took place in 1881?
How would setting have affected “The Yellow Wallpaper” if the story took place in Las Vegas in 2014?
How would the setting have affected Georg and Ulrich if “The Interlopers” took place in the city?
How would setting have affected “The Yellow Wallpaper” if the story took place in Las Vegas in 2014?

7. Three basic types of setting
Nature & Outdoors
It’s important to note natural surroundings (hills, shorelines, mountains, valleys, etc.) the seasons, living creatures, and the weather. Any and all of these may influence character and action.

8. Three basic types of setting
Objects of human manufacture and construction
Houses, cities, possessions, and objects that are created by people also motivate and affect characters and motivation.

9. Three types of setting Cultural Conditions
Historical and cultural conditions and assumptions add to a story just as much as a physical setting does.

10. Why is setting important?
Helps a work become real and credible
Brings out qualities in a character
May be an aspect of the story’s organization
May be symbolic
May create atmosphere and mood
May emphasize story’s irony

11. Mood and atmosphere
Feeling created in the reader by a literary work or passage. The mood is often suggested by descriptive details. The mood can be described in a single word.

12. Dreary

13. Cheery

14. Some common mood words Positive mood words: amused calm cheerful
exhilarated
mellow
Negative mood words:
aggravated
anxious
desolate
enraged
numb