The Use and Function of the Setting in British-

American Fiction
1. Introduction
Thesis sentence: In most cases the author chooses a certain kind of setting
deliberately, and in such cases its description is emphasised and detailed: the
setting may be a very important part of a story because it may add further
information and deeper meaning to the story with the help of symbols and it can also
set an adequate mood.

Definition of setting: The overall background against which the action of a narrative
takes place: the time, place, physical details, and circumstances in which a situation
occurs; settings include the background, atmosphere or environment in which
characters live and move, and usually include physical characteristics of the
surroundings
difference between setting and locale: local refers only to the physical background of
a story, setting also includes the way of life and general environment of the
characters, and the time or period of history in which action takes place

Literature: Sir Orfeo, Poe The Fall of the House of Usher

2. Use and Function

Setting: simple (ancient writings) or elaborate (todays writings); sometimes
relatively unimportant, but can be the most important part of understanding a story

Common genre specific settings:

o Realist > actual places: cities, villages (usually named)
o Fantasy > past medieval times, castles, forests, fictitious worlds (fairyland)
o Science-fiction > future times/post-apocalyptic, space, planets

Uses and function of setting:

o The vivid description of a setting enables the reader to depict the story more
easily and realistically.
o As a shaper of events (in mystery or horror stories, esp.) In stories of men in
conflict with nature, the setting (nature) often becomes a character, usually the
antagonist (e.g. in Hemingways The Old Man and the Sea).
o As an adjunct to the plot and characterizations. It shows important changes and
developments. Moving from one place to another shows movement in action.
o It adds an emotional quality to the work, an atmosphere or feel, a mood, or
contrasts. The setting sets the mood and should put the reader into the right
frame of mind to accept what then evolves in the plot.
o As an external reflection of the internal state of the character
o As a symbol related to the action and its deeper significance.
Symbols in settings: traditional (many of them are easily
recognisable) or original (made up by the author > has to be part of the
context of the story to take on meaning); symbols can be part of the
setting > may be tied directly to the theme of the work; makes the reader
understand more about the plot, theme, characters and events > careful
readers notice the symbols > they are brought into a story more quickly;
[apart from places, the seasons of the year and weather can be symbolic

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 of various meanings, e.g. autumn stands for dying, winter for death
spring for rebirth/new beginning; naming of places/characters can also be
symbolic]

3. Relevant Literature

a) Sir Orfeo
Middle English romance, Breton lay, with Celtic elements
In Sir Orfeo, a minstrel retells, this time with an English setting, the age-old story
of the love of Orpheus for Eurydice (originally Greek setting), a love so strong
that it overcame death.

Celtic folklore:
Set in a scene rich with Celtic folklore, the poem involves magic and
enchantment, a King who loses everything only to regain it after years of
suffering, fidelity to spouse and to lord, love, and music. The music of the harp
was considered sacred by the Celts and represents harmony; its power is such
that it can restore order, even overcoming the fairy King.

Parallelism between Orfeos kingdom and wife (Heurodis) > he loses both of
them, but recovers them in the end

Direct parallels between Orfeos kingdom and fairyland (typically Celtic blending
of reality and otherworld):
o Description:
fairyland > And showed me castles there, and towers, rivers,
forests, woods with flowers
Orfeos kingdom > He, once the lord of castles, towers,
rivers, forests, woods with flowers
As opposed to the original story: Fairyland instead of Hades
(+ happy ending)
o Social hierarchy: king, queen, knights (even their numbers are the
same: 1000), subjects

Traditional symbolic setting:

o Traciens: the kingdom of Sir Orfeo > ideal kingdom with an ideal ruler and
subjects
Sir Orfeo is directly derived from the classical myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.
Indeed, the poet tells in lines 47-49 of the poem that Thrace, the original
setting of the Orpheus myth, was called Winchester in the time of (this) Orfeo,
advising the reader that Sir Orfeo is a translation of the Greek original into the
English language and culture.
o Orchard (artificial, controlled) > sinister place > place of temptation (Eden
snake) > Heurodis is tempted and abducted by the fairies
tree: magic tree; comes from Irish lore > trees open the door to other
worlds/also to the underworld
o Noon > Heurodis is sleeping and is visited by the fairies in her dream > noon,
dream > negative aspect (suggests something bad will happen)
o Forest (wilderness, natural, uncontrolled) > represents Orfeos state of mind >
his grief is uncontrollable
+ loneliness > maybe Sir Orfeo had to prove that he is worth his wife (he
hadnt fight on the battlefield but had to fight with the loneliness in the
wilderness; Sir Orfeo and not King Orfeo > represented as a hero; no heir)

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 o Rock > the place of Fairyland (F. is within the rock); Irish folk tale element, over
the rock (the unknown place) anything can happen (~ sg like az veghegyen
tl in the Hungarian folk tale tradition)
o Fairyland
In the Greek source, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, music plays an
essential role as Orpheus uses his skill on the lyre to lull Cerberus and the other
obstacles of Hades. In the lay the underworld is replaced by the Celtic idea of a
parallel world ruled by malevolent fairy creatures; however, the creator of Sir
Orfeoretains music as a central theme.
Celtic vision of fairyland > grotesque: beautiful (gold columns and arches,
sumptuousness, precious stones, like a medieval castle put into F.), but has its
dark side (the world of the dead and the taken > captured people headless,
pierced, hacked, choked, mad => everybody is represented at the point of
their death > not an English hell > Irish folk tale element); time passes
differently > Heurodis has not aged and changed during her staying there
(Orfeo has aged and changed in the forest)

b) Poe The Fall of the House of Usher

Typically gloomy/dark/Gothic atmosphere created right at the beginning (typical of
Poe macabre):
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year,
when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing
alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country ; and at length
found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the
melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was - but, with the first glimpse of
the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit.

The symbols are rather straightforwardly expressed

o The haunted house and the setting are a reflection of Roderick Usher:
dilapidating house and tarn, whose signs of decay reflect the mental condition
of Usher, which is rapidly deteriorating

o The House of Usher: both the family and the family mansion > the Ushers
(Roderick and Madeline) are ill the mansion dilapidates > the Ushers die out
the mansion collapses

The Gothic tradition in Poes writings

Elements of Gothic writing:

Emphasis on setting (castle) Buried family secrets

Exterior: landscape (dreary) Long history of family tied to place
Interior: houses (haunted h.) Mysterious sickness
Castle-like architecture Doubled personality
Characters are brooding, secretive Women in distress

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Poes typical building as the representation of a state of mind
Location: set apart in a valley or a sea or a waste place remoteness express the
retreat of the poets mind from worldly consciousness into dream
Structure: tottery; crumbling or decomposing the dreamers mind is moving
toward a perfect freedom from his material self and the material world
Inside: dim and winding passages indicate the state of reverie waking life is
dominated by reason (= daylight & straight lines)
Dream rooms: circle or oval identified with the otherworldly imagination angular
forms identified with everyday reason
Furnishings: weird, magnificent, and suggestive of great wealth the heroes are
richly imaginative
Lighting: no windows, or the windows are blocked up or shuttered. The time is
always night. Artificial lighting: flickering candles, wavering torches, censers,
chandelier that hangs from a lofty ceiling by a long chain
Cellars or catacombs the irrational part of the mind





Comparison btw. a building and a man in The Haunted Palace

The Haunted Palace A man The House of
Usher//Roderick
Usher
Stanzas 1-4: a point-by-point comparison btw. a
building and the head of a man
The exterior of the The mans physical The body of R.U.
palace features
The interior of the The mans mind The mind of R. U.
palace engaged in
harmonious
imaginative thought
The two luminous The eyes of the vacant eye-like
windows of the palace man windows
The yellow banners on The mans luxuriant hair of a more than
the roof blond hair web-like softness
and tenuty
The pearl and ruby The mans mouth
door (red lips + pearly
white teeth)
The beautiful Echoes The poetic
which issue from the utterances of the
pearl and ruby door mans harmonious
imagination
The angel-guarded The mans exclusive
valley in which the awareness of
palace stands, the exalted and spiritual
monarch Thoughts things
 dominion
Stanzas 5-6: description of the physical and
spiritual corruption of the palace and its domain
The monarch is acute bodily illness
disrupted by civil war [] a mental
everything alters for disorder which
the worse oppressed R. U.
The valley becomes the domain of
barren Roderick Usher is
also barren and
deary
The windows which The bloodshot eyes the now miraculous
have become red- of a madman or a luster of [Roderick
litten drunkard Ushers] eye
The door has turned Discordant mind lips somewhat thin
pale and through it and very pallid
come no sweet Echoes ghastly pallor of the
but wild laughter skin
there was a species
of mad hilarity in his
eye



4. Conclusion
As I have demonstrated with the help of these two examples, setting plays as
much of an important role in literature as characters or plot. Setting, which
includes scenery, time period and moral or intellectual environment, creates the
stage on which characters move and act. Therefore analyzing the setting in a
piece of literature can produce a lot of information about its themes.
In Sir Orfeo, we have seen that the loss of his wife was accompanied by the
leaving of his kingdom. That is, we have seen how Sir Orfeo left his beautiful
kingdom and chose the wilderness as a place, a setting more appropriate to his
uncontrollable grief.
As opposed to this usage of setting, the gloomy and dark setting in Poes The
Fall of the House of Usher represented a state of mind from the outset as it
functions as the externalisation of Roderick Ushers mind.