Japan in the 1920s was in a state of great transition. World War I was over, but the country would never be the same. Just as the decade was one of great societal and cultural value shifts in the United States, so it was in Japan. Western influence was infiltrating every aspect of the Japanese…
Tag: SETTING
Forty-Five a Month – Setting
Movement for Indian Independence from Britain At the time that Narayan was writing ‘‘Forty-Five a Month,’’ India was a colony of the British empire and was struggling to gain independence from Great Britain. This independence, declared in 1947, was not fully achieved until 1950, when India established its own constitution and declared itself a republic….
The Doll’s House by Katherine Mansfield – Setting
New Zealand History This story takes place in Karori, which is on the outskirts of Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. At the time the action takes place, New Zealand was in its postcolonial phase. The country colonized relatively late. The first Europeans to arrive were the Dutch, in 1642, but the country remained open…
Dog Star by Arthur C Clarke – Setting
Observatories The narrator of ‘‘Dog Star’’ is a professional astronomer, with the story revolving around the future of astronomy. Clarke believed that once space travel became routine, older earthbound astronomical observatories would replaced by instruments located away from Earth: ‘‘The stories of Mount Wilson, Palomar, Greenwich, and the other great names were coming to an…
Contents of the Dead Man’s Pocket – Setting
The Cold War The explosions of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, brought World War II to an end, and the rapid growth of the Soviet Union’s military power and ambition cast a pall over the Western world, including the United States, in the post-war years. The Cold War is a term used…
The Censors by Luisa Valenzuela – Setting
Government Oppression in Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s Valenzuela’s ‘‘The Censors’’ was written in the aftermath of a period of great turmoil in Argentina’s history. Juan Pero´n was a popular president in Argentina when he was first elected and during the early years of this administration (1946–1952). A supporter of unions and the working…
B. Wordsworth by V. S. Naipaul – Setting
Trinidad in the 1930s and 1940s Trinidad, where the story is set, and where Naipaul lived until he was eighteen, was colonized by Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and Spanish control continued until 1797, when the island was captured by Great Britain, which then assumed control. In the 1840s, the British began recruiting…
Aunty Misery – Setting
Puerto Rican Folktales Puerto Rican culture is a mixture of Taino (native inhabitants of the Caribbean Islands), Spanish, and African influences. As such, the folktales from this country reflect this mixed heritage. Few purely Taino myths have survived, as the islands (including Puerto Rico) were colonized by Spain in the fifteenth century. (Christopher Columbus ‘‘discovered’’…
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love – Setting
John Gardner John Gardner (1933-1982), an American novelist and poet, was one of Carver’s first writing teachers. Gardner is perhaps best known for his novel Grendel (1971), which is a retelling of the traditional Beowulf story from the perspective of the monster. His novel October Light (1976) won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Gardner…
That Evening Sun – Setting
New Kinds of Narration “That Evening Sun” is an example of the different kinds of narration that writers such as Faulkner pioneered. Although very traditional in comparison with some of Faulkner’s other experiments—part of The Sound and the Fury, for example, is narrated by a mentally retarded boy who has no sense of the passage…