Unit 1 · Topic 1.2

1.2 Reading the setting: time and place

Setting is when and where a story happens. In a short story every detail of setting has to earn its place, so the time and place the writer chooses, and the specific details they describe, usually tell you something about the characters and what they're up against.

Key terms

setting
time and place
atmosphere
descriptive detail
imagery

What counts as setting

Setting has two parts. Time can mean the historical era, the season, the day of the week or the hour. Place can mean a country, a town, a street, a single room or even the view from one window.

Short stories have very little space, so writers can't describe everything. They pick a few details and let those do the work. Your job is to notice which details were picked and ask why those and not others.

What setting can do

Setting details can do several jobs, listed below. Later units go deeper: in Unit 3 you'll treat setting as a whole society, with its class rules and history (3.3), and in Unit 4 you'll look at how setting creates mood and mirrors a character's feelings (4.3). For now, focus on the basics: time, place and the details chosen to show them.

Shape the characters' choices. A girl stuck in a small town has fewer options than one in a big city.
Reveal a character. The room someone lives in, and how they keep it, works like a description of them.
Create pressure. Cold weather, poverty, a crowded house or a closing deadline can push characters into conflict.
Mark change. A field that has been built over, or a house that has fallen apart, can show how time has passed.

Questions to ask about any setting

When and where are we? Is the time of day, season or era important?
Which details does the writer zoom in on? Sounds, smells and objects all count.
Are the words describing the setting positive, negative or mixed?
Is the setting changing, or does it stay stuck?
How does the character feel about this place, and do you agree with them?

Look at the verbs and adjectives

Writers often slip an attitude into setting through small word choices. "The evening arrived" is neutral. "The evening crept in" is a little ominous. "The evening invaded" sounds like an attack. Adjectives work the same way: a "cozy" kitchen and a "cramped" kitchen might be the same size, but they suggest different lives.

When a setting detail seems oddly specific, like a smell or a stain or a broken object, slow down. Writers rarely include those by accident.

Worked examples

Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.

Example 1
Setting in the opening of "Eveline"
Read the opening of James Joyce's "Eveline" (in Dubliners, 1914). Eveline, a young woman in Dublin, is about to decide whether to leave home with a sailor: "She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne. She was tired." (Cretonne is a heavy cotton cloth used for curtains.) Later she remembers that a field where she played as a child was sold, and "a man from Belfast bought the field and built houses in it." How does the setting help characterize Eveline's situation?
Show the solutionHide the solution
1. Step 1: Pin down time and place. It's evening, she's indoors at a window, looking out at her street.
2. Step 2: Look at the verbs. The evening doesn't fall or arrive; it invades. That makes the outside world feel hostile and pushing in on her.
3. Step 3: Look at the sensory detail. She smells "dusty cretonne": old curtains that nobody has cleaned. The home is stale. "She was tired" is short and flat, matching the room.
4. Step 4: Look at change. The childhood field has been built over. The world outside is moving on while she sits still.
5. Step 5: Connect the details to a claim about her situation.
Answer: Model paragraph: Joyce uses the setting to show that Eveline is trapped between a stale home and a world that is moving on without her. She sits still "at the window," a place where you look out but don't leave, and watches "the evening invade the avenue," a verb that makes the outside world feel like a threat rather than a door. Even the air of her home is old: she breathes "the odour of dusty cretonne," curtains no one has cleaned in years. Meanwhile the field from her childhood has been sold and "built" over, so the place she remembers no longer exists. The setting sets up her choice before she makes it: home is stale, and the world outside feels both changed and threatening.

Common mistakes

Describing the setting without explaining what it does. "The story takes place in Dublin in the evening" earns nothing by itself.
Ignoring small details like smells, sounds and objects. Those are usually the ones the writer chose most carefully.
Treating setting as only a place. Time of day, season and historical moment are setting, too.

On the exam

Multiple-choice questions may ask what a description of a place "suggests" about a character or "contributes" to a passage. Look for the answer that links the setting to the character, not one that just describes the scenery.
Setting is only a small slice of the multiple-choice section on its own, but setting details make excellent evidence for claims about character and conflict in the prose fiction essay.

Connected topics

Videos

AP English Literature: How to Talk About Setting in the Literary Analysis Essay
Marco LearningWatch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)
"What is a Setting?": A Literary Guide for English Students and Teachers
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AP® Eng Lit Unit 2 Speed Review (Setting)
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Why is a story's setting important?
mistersato411Watch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Check yourself

5 questions on 1.2 Reading the setting: time and place. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.

North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers’ School set the boys free. An uninhabited house of two storeys stood at the blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground. The other houses of the street, conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces.

The former tenant of our house, a priest, had died in the back drawing-room. Air, musty from having been long enclosed, hung in all the rooms, and the waste room behind the kitchen was littered with old useless papers. Among these I found a few paper-covered books, the pages of which were curled and damp: The Abbot, by Walter Scott, The Devout Communicant and The Memoirs of Vidocq. I liked the last best because its leaves were yellow. The wild garden behind the house contained a central apple-tree and a few straggling bushes under one of which I found the late tenant’s rusty bicycle-pump. He had been a very charitable priest; in his will he had left all his money to institutions and the furniture of his house to his sister.

When the short days of winter came dusk fell before we had well eaten our dinners. When we met in the street the houses had grown sombre. The space of sky above us was the colour of ever-changing violet and towards it the lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns. The cold air stung us and we played till our bodies glowed. Our shouts echoed in the silent street. The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the houses where we ran the gauntlet of the rough tribes from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odours arose from the ashpits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness. When we returned to the street light from the kitchen windows had filled the areas. If my uncle was seen turning the corner we hid in the shadow until we had seen him safely housed. Or if Mangan’s sister came out on the doorstep to call her brother in to his tea we watched her from our shadow peer up and down the street. We waited to see whether she would remain or go in and, if she remained, we left our shadow and walked up to Mangan’s steps resignedly. She was waiting for us, her figure defined by the light from the half-opened door. Her brother always teased her before he obeyed and I stood by the railings looking at her. Her dress swung as she moved her body and the soft rope of her hair tossed from side to side.

Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door. The blind was pulled down to within an inch of the sash so that I could not be seen. When she came out on the doorstep my heart leaped. I ran to the hall, seized my books and followed her. I kept her brown figure always in my eye and, when we came near the point at which our ways diverged, I quickened my pace and passed her. This happened morning after morning. I had never spoken to her, except for a few casual words, and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood.

Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance. On Saturday evenings when my aunt went marketing I had to go to carry some of the parcels. We walked through the flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curses of labourers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys who stood on guard by the barrels of pigs’ cheeks, the nasal chanting of street-singers, who sang a come-all-you about O’Donovan Rossa, or a ballad about the troubles in our native land. These noises converged in a single sensation of life for me: I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes. Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom. I thought little of the future. I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.

James Joyce, “Araby,” from Dubliners (1914)

Question 1 of 5

In paragraph 1, the description of North Richmond Street as “blind” and of its houses as gazing at one another “with brown imperturbable faces” primarily suggests a neighborhood that is

Question 2 of 5

The details in paragraph 2 (the “musty” air, the “curled and damp” pages and the “rusty bicycle-pump”) mainly help to create

Although it was so brilliantly fine—the blue sky powdered with gold and great spots of light like white wine splashed over the Jardins Publiques—Miss Brill was glad that she had decided on her fur. The air was motionless, but when you opened your mouth there was just a faint chill, like a chill from a glass of iced water before you sip, and now and again a leaf came drifting—from nowhere, from the sky. Miss Brill put up her hand and touched her fur. Dear little thing! It was nice to feel it again. She had taken it out of its box that afternoon, shaken out the moth-powder, given it a good brush, and rubbed the life back into the dim little eyes. “What has been happening to me?” said the sad little eyes. Oh, how sweet it was to see them snap at her again from the red eiderdown!... But the nose, which was of some black composition, wasn’t at all firm. It must have had a knock, somehow. Never mind—a little dab of black sealing-wax when the time came—when it was absolutely necessary.... Little rogue! Yes, she really felt like that about it. Little rogue biting its tail just by her left ear. She could have taken it off and laid it on her lap and stroked it. She felt a tingling in her hands and arms, but that came from walking, she supposed. And when she breathed, something light and sad—no, not sad, exactly—something gentle seemed to move in her bosom.

There were a number of people out this afternoon, far more than last Sunday. And the band sounded louder and gayer. That was because the Season had begun. For although the band played all the year round on Sundays, out of season it was never the same. It was like some one playing with only the family to listen; it didn’t care how it played if there weren’t any strangers present. Wasn’t the conductor wearing a new coat, too? She was sure it was new. He scraped with his foot and flapped his arms like a rooster about to crow, and the bandsmen sitting in the green rotunda blew out their cheeks and glared at the music. Now there came a little “flutey” bit—very pretty!—a little chain of bright drops. She was sure it would be repeated. It was; she lifted her head and smiled.

Only two people shared her “special” seat: a fine old man in a velvet coat, his hands clasped over a huge carved walking-stick, and a big old woman, sitting upright, with a roll of knitting on her embroidered apron. They did not speak. This was disappointing, for Miss Brill always looked forward to the conversation. She had become really quite expert, she thought, at listening as though she didn’t listen, at sitting in other people’s lives just for a minute while they talked round her.

She glanced, sideways, at the old couple. Perhaps they would go soon. Last Sunday, too, hadn’t been as interesting as usual. An Englishman and his wife, he wearing a dreadful Panama hat and she button boots. And she’d gone on the whole time about how she ought to wear spectacles; she knew she needed them; but that it was no good getting any; they’d be sure to break and they’d never keep on. And he’d been so patient. He’d suggested everything—gold rims, the kind that curved round your ears, little pads inside the bridge. No, nothing would please her. “They’ll always be sliding down my nose!” Miss Brill had wanted to shake her.

Katherine Mansfield, “Miss Brill” (1920), from The Garden Party, and Other Stories (1922)

Question 3 of 5

The details about the band in paragraph 2 chiefly convey Miss Brill's

The woods were already filled with shadows one June evening, just before eight o’clock, though a bright sunset still glimmered faintly among the trunks of the trees. A little girl was driving home her cow, a plodding, dilatory, provoking creature in her behavior, but a valued companion for all that. They were going away from the western light, and striking deep into the dark woods, but their feet were familiar with the path, and it was no matter whether their eyes could see it or not.

There was hardly a night the summer through when the old cow could be found waiting at the pasture bars; on the contrary, it was her greatest pleasure to hide herself away among the high huckleberry bushes, and though she wore a loud bell she had made the discovery that if one stood perfectly still it would not ring. So Sylvia had to hunt for her until she found her, and call Co’! Co’! with never an answering Moo, until her childish patience was quite spent. If the creature had not given good milk and plenty of it, the case would have seemed very different to her owners. Besides, Sylvia had all the time there was, and very little use to make of it. Sometimes in pleasant weather it was a consolation to look upon the cow’s pranks as an intelligent attempt to play hide and seek, and as the child had no playmates she lent herself to this amusement with a good deal of zest. Though this chase had been so long that the wary animal herself had given an unusual signal of her whereabouts, Sylvia had only laughed when she came upon Mistress Moolly at the swamp-side, and urged her affectionately homeward with a twig of birch leaves. The old cow was not inclined to wander farther, she even turned in the right direction for once as they left the pasture, and stepped along the road at a good pace. She was quite ready to be milked now, and seldom stopped to browse. Sylvia wondered what her grandmother would say because they were so late. It was a great while since she had left home at half past five o’clock, but everybody knew the difficulty of making this errand a short one. Mrs. Tilley had chased the hornéd torment too many summer evenings herself to blame any one else for lingering, and was only thankful as she waited that she had Sylvia, nowadays, to give such valuable assistance. The good woman suspected that Sylvia loitered occasionally on her own account; there never was such a child for straying about out-of-doors since the world was made! Everybody said that it was a good change for a little maid who had tried to grow for eight years in a crowded manufacturing town, but, as for Sylvia herself, it seemed as if she never had been alive at all before she came to live at the farm. She thought often with wistful compassion of a wretched dry geranium that belonged to a town neighbor.

“‘Afraid of folks,’” old Mrs. Tilley said to herself, with a smile, after she had made the unlikely choice of Sylvia from her daughter’s houseful of children, and was returning to the farm. “‘Afraid of folks,’ they said! I guess she won’t be troubled no great with ’em up to the old place!” When they reached the door of the lonely house and stopped to unlock it, and the cat came to purr loudly, and rub against them, a deserted pussy, indeed, but fat with young robins, Sylvia whispered that this was a beautiful place to live in, and she never should wish to go home.

The companions followed the shady wood-road, the cow taking slow steps, and the child very fast ones. The cow stopped long at the brook to drink, as if the pasture were not half a swamp, and Sylvia stood still and waited, letting her bare feet cool themselves in the shoal water, while the great twilight moths struck softly against her. She waded on through the brook as the cow moved away, and listened to the thrushes with a heart that beat fast with pleasure. There was a stirring in the great boughs overhead. They were full of little birds and beasts that seemed to be wide awake, and going about their world, or else saying good-night to each other in sleepy twitters. Sylvia herself felt sleepy as she walked along. However, it was not much farther to the house, and the air was soft and sweet. She was not often in the woods so late as this, and it made her feel as if she were a part of the gray shadows and the moving leaves. She was just thinking how long it seemed since she first came to the farm a year ago, and wondering if everything went on in the noisy town just the same as when she was there; the thought of the great red-faced boy who used to chase and frighten her made her hurry along the path to escape from the shadow of the trees.

Suddenly this little woods-girl is horror-stricken to hear a clear whistle not very far away. Not a bird’s whistle, which would have a sort of friendliness, but a boy’s whistle, determined, and somewhat aggressive. Sylvia left the cow to whatever sad fate might await her, and stepped discreetly aside into the bushes, but she was just too late. The enemy had discovered her, and called out in a very cheerful and persuasive tone, “Halloa, little girl, how far is it to the road?” and trembling Sylvia answered almost inaudibly, “A good ways.”

She did not dare to look boldly at the tall young man, who carried a gun over his shoulder, but she came out of her bush and again followed the cow, while he walked alongside.

Sarah Orne Jewett, “A White Heron” (1886)

Question 4 of 5

In paragraph 1, the detail that Sylvia and the cow walk “into the dark woods” while “their feet were familiar with the path” suggests that Sylvia

Question 5 of 5

The “wretched dry geranium that belonged to a town neighbor” (paragraph 2) most likely serves to

0 of 5 answered