Setting Theme

Setting tells you where and when a story occurs. Setting includes two things: time and place. Time includes the time period. It can also include elapsed time, or how much time passes for the characters. The place is where a story happens, including details about what that space looks, sounds or smells like or what it is like to live there.

Read the following passage from Alice in Wonderland: 

Once in the wood, she was anxious to get back to her right size again, and then to get into that lovely garden. But how? Peeping over a mushroom, she beheld a large blue caterpillar sitting on the top with its arms folded...

Which detail from the text provides a clue to the place where this passage takes place?

• “Once in the wood…"
• “A large blue caterpillar..”
• “...get back to her right size again...”
• “...with its arms folded”

How do you know what the setting of a story is? Sometimes, a narrator will tell you where and when the story occurs right away. Often, though, you’ll have to look for clues to determine the setting. Try to find words or phrases that tell you what it looks like or sounds like where the characters are. Characters can also give clues about the setting. Be sure that your inferences about the setting are backed up by evidence from the text.

Read the following passage:
As Maribelle hurried down the street, the wind swept the snow along the sidewalk and hid her footsteps, so that it looked as if no one had passed. Above her, the cold, silent skyscrapers of the city loomed. The whole block was eerily silent in the snowstorm, and she pulled her coat tightly around her. Maribelle had only moved here a few months before. She came because she wanted to be a singer. But right now, she was frightened.

Which detail from the passage indicate the setting?

• “Above her, the cold, silent skyscrapers of the city loomed.”
  
• “Maribelle had only moved here a few months before.”
  
• “But right now, she was frightened.”
• “She came because she wanted to be a singer.”
  

Setting can also affect the plot, or the events that make up the story or novel. Some plots can take place only in certain times and places.

Which option describes a plot that can only take place in a specific setting?

• A selfish child tries to be a better person.
• A young woman falls in love with her family’s enemy.
• A ship’s captain chases a whale across the sea.
  
• A poor, hardworking woman becomes a successful chef.
  

Setting can symbolize, or stand for, other elements of a story. For example, when setting changes, a character might change. Setting can also symbolize what a character is feeling in a particular scene. Setting can also help us understand the choices that characters make.

Read the following passage:
Gilberto had been excited to go to the beach but when he got there and saw how crowded it was, he became annoyed. The sun twinkled in the sky, a warm yellow globe. The sound of the ocean drummed in his ears and the sand itched his ankles and feet. Beside him, his sister slurped loudly on an ice cream cone. “Could you not?” Gilberto asked.

Which detail about the setting tells us that Gilberto is annoyed?

• “The sound of the ocean drummed in his ears and the sand itched his ankles and feet.”
• “The sun twinkled in the sky, a warm yellow globe.”
• “Beside him, his sister slurped loudly on an ice cream cone.”
  
• “Gilberto had been excited to go to the beach...”
  

In addition to plot and character, setting can shape the mood of a story. A story’s mood is its general atmosphere or overall feeling. The mood of a story can be energetic, nervous, peaceful or many other feeling words.

Which of the following settings suggest a tense and nervous mood?

• A city playground full of laughing, playing children and parents.
• A long line of people waiting for a few concert tickets.
• A stream running through a quiet, isolated forest.
• An empty mall parking lot early on a Sunday morning.

Setting can often be connected to theme. A theme is a universal message of a story or novel. Themes are about big topics, like exploration, freedom, love and loss. Themes can include morals or lessons. So how is setting connected to theme? Certain times and places lead to explorations of certain big topics. If a novel is set during a war, for example, it might have themes about freedom and loyalty.

Which option is the most likely setting for a story with the theme “humans vs nature?”

• A nursing home
• A middle school
• A forest
• A lawyer’s office

Which questions about a story will the setting answer?

• What is the author’s attitude toward the characters?

• Where and when does the story take place?

• Who are the people the story is about?

• Why and when did the author write the story?

Setting can give clues about a story’s ________.

• plot

• conflict

• mood

• all of the above

Which of the following might describe the setting of a story?

• a frog and a witch

• happy and loving

• a high school in 1956

• love is stronger than fear

What is the setting of the passage below?

One summer day, Randolph the Bright slept alone in his room in the castle at Reddington. The light of morning seeped slowly through his curtains. Randolph blinked against the day, smiling as his dream came to a peaceful conclusion.

• winter in a train station of a busy city

• a hospital in the future

• a summer morning in a castle

• a grocery store in the 1980s