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Importance Of Setting In The Interlopers, By Jack London

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How Setting Relates to a Book

The setting, is what will shape what you’re reading, it answers the “where” and “when” of the story. A setting is essential in a story, because without it the reader does not get a full understanding or the book or really a sense of what is truly happening. The setting shapes the plot, it moves the story. It shapes characters, it gives them more to their personalities. It gives the book suspense. The setting is obviously very important. Often, the setting has a purpose to fulfill which will contribute to the plot. For example in “The Interlopers” by Saki, the story would have ended differently, “...a deed of Nature's own violence overwhelmed them both.” The setting built the possibility of that ending. In “To Build A Fire” by Jack London the setting was an extremely important factor to the plot. The weather is the driving force of the story, the cold will be the reason the man does everything that he does, so everything that happens will be due to the cold. The things that the man would have to do, for example build a fire, would be essential in this weather. Also the man's surroundings would ruin him, “Each time he had pulled a …show more content…

It adds depth to a character, for example, in “To Build A Fire” by Jack London, the man knew the woods, he was comfortable in the cold and that confidence would give him stubbornness when it was suggested that he take a partner with him into the woods. Instead he went alone in the woods, with only a dog, when the temperature was -75°. Also, there are examples that can be found In the short story “A Day in the Country”, by Anton Chekhov, there is a man named Terenty. Terenty lives in a village and is basically a father figure to two orphaned children, they look up to him, they ask him questions and he consistently has answers. Because of the time period and the place the story takes place, Terenty’s character is given much more depth than if there was no

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