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CHAPTER IV

THE BACKGROUND OF THE ACTION: SETTING

If one examines a complete piece of narration, — Maupassant's Happiness (Le Bonheur) for instance, he will, in most cases, be able to distinguish three separate elements that together constitute the story. First of all is the stage upon which the action takes place, the background against which the scene is projected. This element is known as SETTING. In the story just cited it is represented by Corsica with its storm of mountains and rolling torrents, its high forests and desert soil, its untutored inhabitants, deaf and blind even to the crude arts of ordinary peasantry. Against this rude and inhospitable background the story of devoted love stands out in brilliant vividness. Setting is an integral part of the story: remove it, or even alter it, and the effect of the narrative is changed.

The second essential to the structure of a narrative is CHARACTER, and this is presented in the dramatis persona. In Maupassant's story this appears primarily in the aged hero and heroine, and subordinately in the several minor personages, such as the narrator, the Brisemares, the Sirmonts, etc.

The third element is PLOT, or the action participated in by the characters and projected upon the given setting. The main plot of Happiness is, of course, concerned with the elopement of Suzanne de Sirmont and the young hussar, and with their humble life on the bleak island of the Mediterranean.

These, then, are the three fundamentals of complete narrative writing: setting, character, plot. In some narratives one is elaborated at the expense of the others; in some, as in Happiness, each is distinct. Setting, from its very nature, does not exist for its own sake, being but the background for more important elements. Setting, indeed, is often entirely omitted, or, at least, so suppressed that some little study is necessary to detect it. The Parable of the Prodigal Son illustrates this. The "far country," the "riotous living," the "elder brother in the field," and the "sounds of music and dancing" suggest details easily capable of elaboration; but the story as it stands is constructed mainly on a foundation of character (the younger son, the father, the elder brother) and of plot (the spendthrift life, the repentance, the forgiveness).

Plot and character, usually with the aid of setting, divide between them much of the best narrative writing. This is well illustrated in extended prose fiction. We have, on the one hand, novels in which the principal stress is given to the personal element; and, on the other, those wherein deeds are all-important. Novelists like George Eliot and George Meredith afford illustrations of the first; Scott and Stevenson, of the second. Although Daniel Deronda and The Egoist present no small amount of setting and plot, yet, after all, in the portrayal of character the careful study of Gwendolyn Harleth and of Sir Willoughby Patterne lies the main purpose. On the other hand, the principal concern of Scott and Stevenson is to tell a good story, to arouse interest in the action, not to dissect motives or to conduct psychologic experiments. Rob Roy and The Master of Ballantræ indeed contain many memorable scenes and present personalities vivid in their truth to actual life, but the for

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tunes of the house of Osbaldistone and of Ballantræ are of greater structural importance than is the personality of Baillie Nicol Jarvie or of James Durie.

SETTING DEFINED

Setting may be defined as the background of the action in a narrative; it usually presents (1) the time and (2) the place of that action. If we revert to our original definition of narration, we shall see that setting is not an integral part of the process, but is rather a device for the more effective presentation of the action. In so far as this is true, setting would seem, as a matter of rhetorical consideration, to be allied to emphasis. Again, however, as a definite exposition of place and time often enter into and harmonize the constituent parts of the entire action, giving an essential one-ness of effect to the account in its entirety, setting is closely associated also with unity. Happiness presents an excellent illustration of the pervading harmony of effect that may come from artistic setting.

Setting may be divided into two distinct classes: (a) expository and (b) dramatic. Expository setting presents background for the clearer understanding of the action; that is, its function is purely intellectual. Dramatic setting, on the other hand, is emotional; its purpose is to intensify the action, to make it more effective, more vivid, more thrilling.

EXPOSITORY AND DRAMATIC SETTING

When the newspaper account of a political convention, of a railway accident, or of a robbery is prefaced by a carefully elaborated exposition of the scene of action, abounding in painstaking detail and accompanied by photographic illustration, its purpose is not only to in

crease interest in the account but to identify, to make thoroughly intelligible to the reader, the details that follow. The appeal is to the understanding; not to the emotions.

The following undergraduate attempts at expository setting, based upon actual observation, serve this intellectual purpose. The subject from which each one is drawn appears in the appended cut.

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A comparison of the two examples illustrates also how the power of observation varies in different persons: the author of the first sketch is apparently gifted with the ability to catch essential details; and the author of the second is not, with the result that the outlines of his picture are so vague, so lacking in definiteness, as to furnish scant material for one who should attempt from the details presented to reproduce the object described.

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(a) Before entering the village by the main street, as I was returning from a walk one October afternoon, I stopped at the bridge over the little stream which at the foot of the last hill runs nearly north and south. While I was resting there, leaning on the railing at the side of the bridge, my attention was attracted to a two-story white building across the stream, about twenty-five or thirty paces to the left of the road.

The main building was oblong. A little lower than the ridge-pole and midway across the front a gable projected, supported by four large white pillars, and serving as a covering to a small porch. On the left of the house a veranda extended to a low shed attached at right angles to the main structure and extending out about twenty feet. The roof of the veranda sloped upward until it met the main building just below the windows of the second story, and, like the roof of the main portion, it was covered with weather-beaten shingles. The ridge-pole of the shed was lower than that of the house itself, so low, in fact, that the only use to which the shed could be put was that of woodhouse or storeroom. It was partly obscured by a large willow tree, growing on the bank of the stream at some distance from the dwelling.

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The house was built of wood, and stood on a foundation of white marble, one layer of which could be seen above the ground. The main part of the house was painted white, and with its green shutters and four white pillars supporting the gable in front, it looked like an old colonial mansion on a somewhat small scale.

In front of the dwelling were four great maples, their leaves a blaze of color. A little to the right of the house, stood a single elm. The approach to the front porch was by a cinder path, directly in front and nearly straight, turning slightly to the east and terminating in three steps. Another path of the same material led from the front porch to the side veranda, which was about four steps from the ground. Between the two paths and the point where I stood, a road entered the yard, and wound to the left, around an oval plot of grass in front of the shed. The lawn in front of the house and within

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