Essay For Setting

Essay for Setting

A setting is where and when the story takes place. Most of the setting involves the time and place of the action, and like “The Three Strangers”, by Thomas Hardy, who presents this short story with good development and distinctive setting. In this work of his, he creates a captivating atmosphere, emphasizes the force that the protagonist struggles with, and he makes it believable.
Hardy creates an environment of rough landscape with phrases like “Three miles of irregular upland…” (760), thus creating a feeling of insecurity. Hardy also represents it in “…some starved fragment of ancient hedge is usually taken advantage of the erection of these forlorn dwellings” (760). In addition, we see the forming of an environment of danger, like in the passage where it says “…straightway several of the party fell into the snare set by Nature for all misguided midnight ramblers over this part of the cretaceous formation…flint slopes, which belted the escarpment…losing their footing on the rubbly steep they slid sharply downwards…” (771). Therefore, giving a mood of mystery and of tension.
Second, Hardy emphasizes that struggle between the protagonist and the people or forces acting on them throughout the whole short story. For example, although Mrs. Fennel allows the new arrivals in her house, she seems uncomfortable with them, “This testimony to the youthfulness of his hostess had the effect of stopping her cross-examination” (764). Similarly, we see that the moment the second stranger gets in the house, the first one tries to create a friendly environment with him, “…and the first stranger handled his neighbor (the second stranger) the family mug…” and also, in the silence of everyone to the second stranger’s song, the first stranger would join in; “The room was silent when he had finished the verse-with one exception, that of the man in the chimney corner who at the singer’s voice, ‘Chorus’ joined in…” (768).
Third, the author makes it believable when he states places, dates, and regional customs. For instance, when instead of the word tobacco, he places baccy, which was a word from that specific place and time, “The shepherd filled and handed him a new clay pipe, saying as he did so, ‘Hand me your baccy box- I’ll fill that too, now I am about it’ ”(765). Also when it says “Among the few features of agricultural England which retain and appearance but little modified by the lapse of centuries… ”, “Shaking the water drops from his low-crowned glazed hat, he said, ‘I must ask for a few minutes’ shelter comrades, or I shall be wetted to my skin before I get to Casterbridge.