Setting

What Is It: Setting is made up of more than just the time and the place. It is a mixture of Cultural, Physical, and Social features that all play a role in the story. You'll want to consider how these features interact with one another to create the Atmosphere or impact our characters.

How to Annotate for It: Note any details the author offers about the setting. Using your background knowledge of history and geography, infer how they might overlap. For example, London poverty is going to look different in Oscar Wilde's Victorian era (the opium boom) than in J. R. R. Tolkien's Modernist era (disabled war veterans). Use background to fill in your mental picture.

What Is It: Atmosphere involves the tone of a setting. Taking into account all of the setting details, you will ask yourself what tone is being set in the passage.

How to Annotate for It: Pull together all of the details being presented by the author related to the setting, and infer what the author's attitude is towards the setting. You will want to think about what their diction, imagery, and details reveal about what they feel towards it. You might also consider if that matches what we would expect the attitude to be towards the setting.

What Is It: The Pathetic Fallacy occurs when an author uses the setting and its atmosphere to give some indication of the internal thoughts or conflicts of a character. The most common example is if it is a dark and stormy night and the character is experiencing some sort of mental challenge. The setting points to the character's state of mind.

How to Annotate for It: Pull out details and diction to describe the setting and the character. Do they match at all? Consider what type of emotions you would have in the setting described. Would that emotion fit the character's situation well?

What Is It: Settings can serve as a symbol within the story, representing larger ideas and multiple meanings.

How to Annotate for It: Consider how the setting pushes characters to behave. Does it emphasize certain traits over other traits? The author might be trying to get you to notice those traits anytime the character is in that setting and use the setting as a symbol for those traits.