More than a backdrop
In a short story, a setting is rarely just a label. The details a writer chooses, the weather, the rooms, the sounds, the people nearby, tell the reader what the place values and what it costs to live there. The course frames this as the idea that setting and the details associated with it not only depict a time and place, but also convey values associated with that setting.
Three kinds of work are worth separating.
- Setting as conveyor of values: a crowded boarding house suggests thrift, noise and a loss of privacy; an empty shore suggests exposure and a chance for reflection.
- Setting as marker of change: when a setting changes, it may suggest other movements, changes or shifts in the narrative.
- Setting in relation to character: the way characters interact with their surroundings provides insights about those characters and the settings they inhabit.
Reading a setting: a four-column grid
| Detail | What it depicts | What it suggests or values | How the character relates to it |
|---|---|---|---|
| The sensory details (sound, smell, light, space) | The literal place | The feelings, rules or priorities attached to it | Fits, resists, avoids, is trapped, escapes |
| The social details (who is there, what they do) | The community or lack of one | Norms and expectations | Included, excluded, watched |
| The temporal details (season, hour, era) | The time | Mood, stage of life, pressure of time | Rushed, delayed, out of step |
| The changes in the details | The movement of the story | A turning point or a shift of attitude | A change in the character’s perception |
Contrasted settings
Writers often place two settings against each other: city and country, house and street, home and exile, a garden and the lane below. Such contrasts can establish a conflict of values or ideas associated with those settings: security against freedom, comfort against conscience, privacy against belonging. A character caught between them is a character in conflict.
How characters behave in a setting
The course notes that the way characters behave in or describe their surroundings reveals an attitude about those surroundings and contributes to the development of the characters and to readers’ interpretations of them. When you analyse, ask:
- What do they notice? (a dripping tap, the sky, the neighbours)
- What do they do? (smooth a dress, avoid a corridor, prop a window open)
- What do they call it? (the words they choose for the place)
- What changes about them as the setting changes?
Public-domain examples to learn from
The Open Boat (Stephen Crane, 1897). The first sentence is “None of them knew the colour of the sky.” The sentence establishes the setting, the sea and a dinghy, and suggests that the men are absorbed in survival, looking at the waves and not at the heavens. The setting is indifferent to their effort, and the values it conveys are about the smallness of the men against nature.
To Build a Fire (Jack London, 1908). The story opens on a bitterly cold, grey Yukon morning, and the setting dominates before the man has done anything. The cold is a place that does not allow error. The man’s behaviour in it, confident and unwilling to heed warning, reveals his attitude to the place and shapes what happens to him.
The Garden Party (Katherine Mansfield, 1922). The story opens, “And after all the weather was ideal.” The sunny, prepared garden is contrasted with the poor cottages in the lane below, which set up a conflict between comfort and compassion for a young woman who passes between them.
Worked example 1: setting that conveys values and tests a character
Original passage written by Marlbridge for practice.
Rosa set her case down in the narrow hall of Number Nine, Cutler’s Row, and held her breath until the smell of boiled cabbage and wet wool had made its peace with her. The stairs were wide enough for one person and a half. Through the thin wall a man was coughing as if he meant to go on for ever. “You’ll be wanting the back room,” said the landlady. “The front’s let.”
Rosa looked at the window of the back room, which gave on to a brick wall a yard off, and thought, with perfect clearness, of the field behind her father’s barn, where she had once lain a whole afternoon and counted the swallows. She unpacked, hanging each dress on a nail and smoothing it as if it might otherwise take offence.
Task. Explain how the setting and Rosa’s behaviour reveal values and character.
What the setting depicts. A cramped, noisy lodging in a town: a “narrow hall”, stairs “wide enough for one person and a half”, a coughing neighbour through “the thin wall”, a window facing “a brick wall a yard off”.
What it conveys. The details insist on narrowness, lack of privacy and endurance. The smell of “boiled cabbage and wet wool” is a domestic, working-class smell, and the landlady’s brisk “The front’s let” shows a place where space is rationed.
Rosa’s behaviour. She “held her breath”, a reaction of reluctance, until the smell “had made its peace with her”, which personifies the smell and suggests she must negotiate with the place. She does not complain. She unpacks carefully and smooths each dress “as if it might otherwise take offence”, an act of anxious care that shows her determination to keep dignity in a small space.
The contrast. She recalls “the field behind her father’s barn”, where she “counted the swallows”. The remembered openness is set against the brick wall “a yard off”. The contrast establishes a conflict of values: freedom and space against necessity and confinement.
Function. The passage uses setting to show the price of Rosa’s choice or need to leave the country, and her mixture of endurance and longing.
A model sentence. “By pairing the brick wall a yard from her window with her memory of a whole afternoon spent counting swallows, the narrator makes Rosa’s lodging a setting of confinement and measures her loss through contrast, while her careful smoothing of each dress shows a dignity that the room cannot take.”
Worked example 2: a change of setting that marks a shift
Original passage written by Marlbridge for practice.
The kitchen was a roar of pans and gossip and the kettle’s long argument with the fire. Tomas slipped out by the back door, and the noise closed behind him like water.
On the shore the tide had gone far out and left the boats leaning on their sides, and the only sound was a gull, one note, over and over. He sat down on an upturned crate and, for the first time in a week, did not know what he ought to be doing next.
Task. How does the change of setting signal a shift in the narrative?
The first setting. The kitchen is noisy, crowded and busy. The personified “argument” between kettle and fire suggests a place of constant demands and talk.
The movement. Tomas “slipped out”, which suggests escape, and “the noise closed behind him like water”, a simile that treats the kitchen as something he has emerged from.
The second setting. The shore is quiet and exposed: “the tide had gone far out”, the boats are “leaning on their sides”, and there is only “one note, over and over”. The detail of boats stranded by the tide suggests a pause in activity, perhaps a loss of support.
The shift. The change of setting coincides with a change in Tomas: he moves from a week of obligation to a moment when he “did not know what he ought to be doing next”. The emptiness of the shore gives him room for the first time to feel uncertain.
Function. The move from kitchen to shore marks a turn from outward duty to inward reflection, and it prepares the reader for a decision or a realisation.
A model sentence. “By moving Tomas from a kitchen of overlapping noise to a shore where the tide has stranded the boats, the narrator shifts the story from obligation to exposure, and the silence gives him, and the reader, room to see what the busyness had hidden.”
Common misconceptions
- “Setting is just where and when.” It also conveys values, atmosphere and pressure.
- “Listing details is analysis.” Say what the details suggest and what they do for character and plot.
- “A change of setting is just movement.” Look at what else shifts: mood, attitude, power, knowledge.
- “Every setting is a symbol.” Symbolic status needs evidence (Topic 7.5). Begin with what the setting conveys.
- “Setting and character are separate topics.” How characters behave in their surroundings is some of the best evidence for both.
Where this leads
How a story arranges time shapes our experience of its settings too, so Topic 7.3 looks at plot order and pacing. Test yourself with the Topic 7.2 practice questions, review with the revision notes and track your progress with the checklist.
Quick questions
What is the difference between describing a setting and analysing it?
Describing says where and when and lists what is there. Analysing says what the details suggest, which values or attitudes attach to the place, and how it affects or reveals the characters and the plot.
Do I have to treat every setting as a symbol?
No. Some settings simply place a story. A setting becomes symbolic when details and repetition associate it with ideas or emotions (see Topic 7.5). Begin with function and values, and move to symbolism only when the evidence supports it.
How do I write about two contrasting settings?
Name each setting's key details, say which values or ideas each carries, say how the contrast creates a conflict, and then show how a character is positioned between or within them.
Can a setting reveal a character who never describes it?
Yes. A character's movements, reactions and choices within a place, such as avoiding, touching, cleaning or leaving it, show attitudes without any direct statement.