Where It’s At: Why Setting Matters
Depending who you talk to, you’ll either here one of two things when it comes to setting: “It’s not important” or “OMG! It’s TEH most important thing EVER!!!!111! It’s like a character!” I like to think it’s somewhere in the middle. More like, “It’s alright.” Alone, it doesn’t really matter all that much. Just think about some sci-fi or fantasy stories that begin with a whole bunch of world-building. Do you read it and enjoy it? Or do you toss that book away and find another that doesn’t waste your time? Most likely, you choose the latter. A wonderful sci-fi novel like Starship Troopers starts with the character and his/her problems and slowly introduces that vast universe. We need someone whose eyes we can see the world from, regardless of how similar or how different that setting is.
You see, setting is merely an extension of character and vice versa. It’s all human psychology. There are those wealthy people in the world who know little of the struggles of everyday people, who may suffer the stress of running a business, of raising their kids, of hosting a great dinner party, of having the nicest home on the block, of being able to afford the latest toy, but they don’t know hunger or homelessness, what it’s like to go to school and feel unsafe or wondering if this month’s check will clear in time to starve off eviction. We are all products of our environment, but we also help to shape them too. The world we are born into represents who we are as much we represent it. The wealthy man might not know what happens in other spheres, but he knows firmly what the people are like in his own. However, if you take him out of his bubble and subject him to another’s, suddenly, there’s the germ of change–for good or for bad. That experience causes him to look at his life and home differently. The clashing of cultures, people from different places interacting, is what helps us move forward as human beings. We recognize the threat of the other, the unknown, and either adapt or resist. The wealthy man, after his encounter with the working poor, might come back to his life with a renewed appreciation. He might return and wonder how such inequality exists. He might come back and decide that he’s entitled to what he has. He might walk in through the doors of his mansion and realize that those people he just saw are nothing more than scum who need to be eradicated. It’s all a matter of perspective and experience.
As I’ve said before, there are really only two kinds of stories that exist: Someone goes on a journey, and a stranger comes to town. When we look at plot this way, it demonstrates the value of setting. It is a harbinger of change. All it depends on is how small your bubble is. In the novel Norwegian Wood, the protagonist’s sphere of influence is his small town of Kobe–or maybe even smaller. It may be his close group of friends: him (Toru), Naoko, and Kizuki (Naoko’s boyfriend). But the novel takes place in bustling Toyko during the 1960s, when Toru finds himself a student in college and must struggle to fit into this new world. Toyko is vastly different, and with it come all kinds of strange characters, like Storm Trooper, Toru’s roommate who keeps their dorm spotless and wakes up at six AM to exercise. Toru finds this new place strange along with it’s inhabitants, but he also learns to adapt. Naoko, who also moved to Toyko, can’t and finds herself in a mental institution outside Kyoto in the mountains. This, coincidentally, is what drives the plot of the novel.
The beginning of Flannery O’Connor’s “Everything That Rises Must Converge” is an excellent example. Just look at the first paragraph.
Her doctor had told Julian’s mother that she must lose twenty pounds on account of her blood pressure, so on Wednesday nights Julian had to take her downtown on the bus for a reducing class at the Y. The reducing class was designed for working girls over fifty, who weighed from 165 to 200 pounds. His mother was one of the slimmer ones, but she said ladies did not tell their age or weight. She would not ride the buses by herself at night since they had been integrated, and because the reducing class was one of her few pleasures, necessary for her health, and free, she said Julian could at least put himself out to take her, considering all she did for him. Julian did not like to consider all she did for him, but every Wednesday night he braced himself and took her.
Julian and his mother come from a more suburban region in the south, but in order to get to the Y, they have to go into the city, where black people and white people have to interact. Travelling itself is a problem and is an extension of the greater conflict of the story: Julian’s mother’s racism. She is a product of the Old South, who sees the world in simpler terms. Julian is much more experienced and has seen other parts of life besides the plantation, but he’s no saint either. He uses his progressiveness as a dagger, something to twist in his mother’s side. He doesn’t want to make friends with black people because he values them as individuals, but because he hates his mother and what she stands for. The question, of course, is whether this story could take place anywhere else? The short answer is yes and no.
Yes, because racism and integration are not unique to America or the 1960s. This story could have easily taken place in South Africa at the end of apartheid. It could be reimagined with aliens–like a District 9. Those points of view would be the same regardless: They are not special in the realm of human experience. However, I also say no, because the American south of the 1960s has a different flavor than any other place in history. It is unique, and it shows in those characters. The things they say, the places they go, the things they think, the conflicts they encounter, are unique to that setting and that setting alone.
Themes are universal. How you demonstrate them is specific.