The Driving Force of Setting

The setting of a work of fiction establishes its historical, geological, and physical location. Where and when the story takes place influences interpretations of the story’s events and characters. Setting may be vital to a story, influencing character’s behavior, as it does in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and as in Kate Chopin’s “The Storm.” In both of these stories, the setting is the most critical motif. It is the …

…that drove her to insanity. In both of these stories, the setting is the driving force that places characters in the right/wrong situations at the right/wrong time. This placement of events and time in such a synchronized way allow for the stories to be played out, and their inevitable endings to immerge. Setting in these two stories is the driving factor that set up the story, and led it to its own end.