A Young America At the time Irving wrote “The Devil and Tom Walker” in 1824, the United States was a new and growing country. As the land was populated by various groups of European immigrants, a uniquely American culture slowly formed as the traditions of many different groups merged and new traditions, brought on by…
Tag: SETTING
Children of the Sea by Edwidge Danticat: Setting
Haiti: The Early Years Although Danticat had been living in the United States for fourteen years by the time ‘ ‘Children of the Sea” was first published, the story draws upon her experience of having spent her early years in Haiti. With generations of experience in poverty, dictatorship, and oppression, Haiti’s population knows hardship well….
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County: Setting
America in the Mid to Late Nineteenth Century “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” was first published in 1865, when Mark Twain was living in the American Southwest, which was still in the process of being settled. The Industrial Revolution had brought machinery and factories to the eastern United States, but most of the…
Araby by James Joyce: Setting
While Dublin, Ireland, has seen change since the turn of the twentieth century, when Joyce wrote “Araby,” many of the conditions present then remain today. In 1904, all of Ireland was under British control, which the Irish resented bitterly. The nationalist group, Sinn Fein (part of which later became the Irish Republican Army—the IRA), had…
The Handmaid’s Tale: Setting
International Conservatism In the 1980s, the political climate around the globe turned toward fiscal restraint and social conservatism. In general, this shift was a response to the permissiveness and unchecked social spending that occurred in the 1970s, which were in turn the extended results of the freedoms won by the worldwide social revolutions of the…
Great Expectations: Setting
Industrialization Nineteenth century England had flourishing cities and emerging industries. Machines made it possible for those with money to invest to earn great profits, especially with an abundance of poor people who were willing to work long hours at hard or repetitive jobs for little pay. By contrast, the rural system included landlords, farmers, and…
The Chosen by Chaim Potok – Setting
The Holocaust Persecution by the Nazis in Germany before World War II led to the dispersal of European Jews to the United States, Palestine, and other countries. When the full extent of the annihilation ofJews in the gas chambers of Nazi Germany was revealed (six million had been exterminated), a resurgence of interest in establishing…
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko: Setting
Pueblo Indians The people of the Anasazi tradition inhabit the area of what is now the Southwestern United States (from Taos, New Mexico, to the Hopi mesas in Arizona). They are named Pueblo, meaning “village Indians” in Spanish. They live in concentrated villages of buildings constructed from adobe local clay, and stone. These buildings are…
All Quiet on the Western Front: Setting
World War I Named for its complex involvement of countries from Northern Europe to Africa, western Asia, and the V.S., World War I, called the Great War, was ignited by a single episode. On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia. As the Austrian government…
A Worn Path: Setting
War and Poverty Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path” was published in 1941, the same year the United States entered World War II. Europe had already been involved in the conflict for several years since Adolph Hitler began enlarging Germany’s empire. Germany declared war on the United States in December, after the Japanese bombing of Pearl…