#10 Week 8 Setting Is a means by which authors structure and shape their works pg. 209-210

Summary

Authors use setting as a way to organize their stories, such as starting off with one setting and ending with another. Enclosed settings or framed settings are another means of organizing objects, place and time in stories. Framing can also mean that an author starts their story in one setting and ends with the same one, which creates completeness in the story. Authors can also express their ideas through settings emphasizing certain things in the setting that may become symbolic as the story begins to develop. Authors create atmosphere and mood by describing sounds, shapes, animals, winds, and light. For happy moods authors use bright descriptive colors while dark colors reflect gloomy moods. Adding references to smells and sensory responses can lead readers to respond the readings, perhaps recalling a moment in time they can relate to what the character smells or senses. A setting can also add to ironic times in a work, much like “The Lottery” where the setting was plain and calm which made the stoning at the end ironic.

Reader Response
I didn’t know that author’s use setting to organize their stories. I knew that settings can become symbolic in certain stories, and that that symbolic item can become the main focus of the story. I did not realize that irony could be portrayed through setting; I always thought irony was delivered by dialog or actions. Before this, I guess it never clicked that bright colors in stories meant happy moods and dark colors meant depressing moods. I think it’s over pretty cool how setting can affect so many aspects of a story without the reader ever realizing that it affects so many different things.