The Importance Of Setting English Literature Essay

There are many points to consider in the creation of a good story. The most important of all those points is the setting of the story. It tells the reader about the background of the place in which the story is set. The setting provides the reader with the hints during the story. It helps them to connect with the characters easily. The setting plays an important role in creating the mood of the story. It helps to keep the story focused, if not the story would not make sense. In the story “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe who studied at University of Virginia and after serving in the military decided to start writing. And the story “Roman Fever” by Edith Wharton, she was born in New York and was educated in Europe. Setting plays a very important role in their story, because the setting helps the reader to understand the main idea of the story. The setting is the time and space in the story.

In the short story “The Cask of Amontillado” the setting is set in the carnival times in some European city. The whole story took place during the evening time because it is stated in the text “it was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend” (Poe 56). If it would have happened in the modern days then, Montresor most likely would not escaped away after killing Fortunato. Montresor left Fortunato chained up to die in the catacombs also brings that sense of surprise ending to the story. If Montresor would have killed Fortunato on the same busy street of the European city, and still would have gotten away with the murder then the story would have a completely different effect on the reader. But he gotten away because of the lack of the technology and the investigation methods were not very developed those days.

In the story “Roman Fever” by Edith Wharton the setting is set in the balcony of the restaurant in Rome, where Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley were having a chat, as mentioned in the first line of the text, “… two American ladies of ripe but well-cared-for middle aged moved across the lofty terrace of the Roman restaurant and,…” (Wharton 98). These two ladies have known each other throughout their lives. They already have memories with the place that they were standing at. Both the ladies were in love with the same man and at the same time, and Mrs. Slade was jealous of Delphin being with Mrs. Ansley. Mrs. Ansley has received a letter one night from Delphin, in which dolphin told her that he wanted to meet her after the dark at the Colosseum. Then Mrs. Slade tells her that it was her who wrote the letter and not dolphin, because she was jealous and was not hoping well for Mrs. Ansley and wanted her to catch the Roman Fever. So they were standing at the same place where delphin called them and talking about all this Mrs. Ansley came to know that the only memory of Delphin was his letter, which was not even written by him. So setting is a very important part in this story as it brings all together.

The setting in “The Cask of Amontillado” and “Roman Fever” are completely different to each other. The setting in the story “The Cask of Amontillado” supports the story very much because montresor needed the dark, dusky and isolated to kill Fortunato so that no one noticed or came to know about it. The Fortunato was trapped in the crypt which was the size of the human. He was chained and bricked up in the catacombs which had no air and no way out of it, as stated in the text “…the roofs of the catacombs, and was backed by one of their circumscribing walls of granite”(Poe 60). In the story “Roman Fever” setting is the main point why there were talking in that restaurant balcony because they had an incident at the Colosseum when they were in Rome before when they loved the same person and that person wanted to talk to Mrs. Ansley but that was just a trick by Mrs. Slade who wanted Mrs. Ansley to get sick and get affected by roman fever. And by doing all this she did not want Mrs. Ansley between her and Delphin. She was sad because she cared for the only memory she had with Delphin and that was also ruined by Mrs. Slade. But in the ending of the story she was not very disappointed with losing that memory because she had a daughter withv Delphin who was Barbara as she said” I had Barbara”(Wharton 110) and then walked away.

The great literature consists of many points that make a good story and out of which setting is an important point. The time, point, surrounding, and environment are important factors in a good story. Without the setting, stories would just be make no sense and would be lacking a big part of the story. The hints come from the place that story takes place, the state the characters are, the surrounding is in which the characters exists, and the environment which the characters face. The setting made everything possible in the story “The cask of Amontillado” for montresor to leave Fortunato to die and because of the isolated and dark place no one came to know about Fortunato who was asking for help. In the story “Roman Fever” they both got into the argument because they were standing on front of the colosseum and they remembered what happened at the colosseum at the time before they were there.

Work Cited

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Cask of Amontillado.” Literature: A Pocket Anthology. 5th

Edition. Ed. R.S. Gwynn. Boston: Pearson Academics, 2012. 56-62. Print.

Wharton, Edith. “Roman Fever.” Literature: A Pocket Anthology. 5th

Edition. Ed. R.S. Gwynn. Boston: Pearson Academics, 2012. 98-110. Print.