Settings

In many plays, poems, and novels, the setting is the literary device that serves as the first platform for the reader to land upon before he interacts with the story. The setting involves the introduction of the time and place in which the plot takes place, along with the social and political circumstances surrounding the environment and its inhabitants. To develop a setting is to help the reader familiarize himself with the environment and its mood and the circumstances the characters experience. In Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice, the setting is an eighteenth century rural English village, where families encourage the female youth to romance and court with the wealthy, young, socially active and revered men. In this type of setting, the reader views the social circumstances as humorous, once the author develops her satirical portrayal of this society. However, in Shakespeare's Hamlet, the setting is much more dark and ominous, as the story begins with the mourning of the previous king of Denmark. The play develops mostly in the estate of the royal family at a time before the sixteenth century.