SETTING AND ATMOSPHERE

SETTING AND ATMOSPHERE

Setting and Atmosphere

Quick revise

After studying this section you should be able to:

• understand the importance of setting in a novel
• recognise some of the ways that writers can create settings and a sense of place
• see how the setting of a novel can be an important influence on other aspects of the narrative

The setting of a novel can be an important element and can be closely related to the development of the plot. Setting can be much more than a simple ‘backdrop’ against which the action takes place and often can be closely bound up with the characters themselves. For example, in Jane Austen’s novel, Emma, the action is set in Highbury which is described as ‘a large and populous village almost amounting to a town’. The main storyline of the novel concerns the social status of the various families in Highbury. Although Austen gives little description of the setting, because her main focus is on the social interaction between the various characters, she does occasionally give a glimpse of the surroundings. In this short extract, for example, she gives us the description of the grounds of Donwell Abbey, the home of Mr Knightley.

It was hot; and after walking some time over the gardens in a scattered, dispersed way, scarcely any three together, they insensibly followed one another to the delicious shade of a broad short avenue of limes, which stretching beyond the garden at an equal distance from the river, seemed the finish of the pleasure grounds. – It led to not nothing but a view at the end over a low stone wall with high pillars, which seemed intended, in their erection, to give the appearance of an approach to the house, which never had been there. Disputable, however, as might be the taste of such a termination, it was in itself a charming walk, and the view which closed it extremely pretty. – The considerable slope, at nearly the foot of which the Abbey stood gradually acquired a steeper form beyond its grounds; and at half a mile distant was a bank of considerable abruptness and grandeur, well clothed with wood; – and at the bottom of this bank, favourably placed and sheltered, rose the Abbey-Mill Farm, with meadows in front, and the river making a close and handsome curve around it. It was a sweet view – sweet to the eye and the mind. English verdure, English culture, English comfort, seen under a sun bright without being oppressive.