There are two main types of setting. They are the physical and historical settings.
3.4.1 Physical Setting
The general locale of a work is its geographical or physical setting. In other words, it is the place of the scene. The geographical location of a work is not synonymous with where it is written. For instance, Soyinka wrote Death and the King’s Horseman in Great Britain but the place or the location of the play is Yorubaland (or to be specific, Oyo town). In addition to the general locale of a work, there may be specific places also where different actions take place. Things Fall Apart is set in Nigeria, in Igboland, in Umuofiaand numerous other specific locations like Okonkwo’s compound; the bush and so on. The physical setting is therefore the location in which action takes place (Abrams, 157).
3.4 .2 Historical Setting
Some writers give dates and places of the action of their work, while others give the information indirectly. This is referred to as the time setting, temporal setting or the historical setting. This type of setting in a work may be immediate or remote. The temporal setting of a work entails the time element which is almost always (but not necessarily so) different from the time the work is written. The concept of time setting also encompasses what it evokes and carries along with it like the cultural, social, economic and religious issues raised in the work. The time setting also influences the mode of writing and the subject matter. For instance, Things Fall Apart was published in 1958, two years before colonialism ended officially in Nigeria but the events of the story may have taken place some years earlier and the story itself must have been written earlier than the date of publication. This is very appropriate because the temporal setting presented two years later would not have presented a true picture of the events in the novel. The typical Achebean post-colonial Nigerian society is shown in A Man of the People andNo Longer at Easewritten immediately after Nigeria’s colonial overlords had left, so the two novels contain post-colonial events to justify their post-independence setting.
Self-Assessment Exercise
List and explain different types of setting in prose fiction.
4.0 CONCLUSION
Setting in fiction is the location where the action of the story takes place. You know that even in the traditional society, stories start with phrases like “once upon a time…in the land of…”
That land of whatever is where the action takes place and it is called setting. Abrams (157) explains that it is the general locale and the historical time in which the action occurs; the setting of an event or episode in a work is the particular physical location in which it takes place. Apart from the place and time of a story, setting also includes any “…elements of a
73 story that results from the place or time (such as the weather, historical events that affect the people in the story, or the kind of environment in which the characters live)(Adeleke52).
5.0 SUMMARY
In this unit, we discussed setting as an important element of prose fiction because a story must be located somewhere in terms of time and space. The two major types of setting are the physical and time setting. We also said that some settings are clearly stated by the writer but in some works the reader is left to recognize the setting through some objects, names and other landmarks that indicate the place and time of the fictional world depicted in the work.
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
List five ways of identifying setting in Prose fiction.
7.0 REFERENCES/ FURTHER READINGS
Abrams, M. H. (1993). A Glossary of Literary Terms.Port Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Ezeigbo, A. T.(1998).A Companion to the Novel.Lagos: Vista
Harmsworth, J. R. (1968). Dictionary of Literary Terms. London: Coles.
Adeleke, T “Plot and Setting” in R. A. Masagbor ed.(1997). The Way of Prose Fiction:
Explanatory Perspectives. Benin: Headmark.
Morrell, J. P. (2006). Between the Lines: Master the Subtle Elements of Fiction Writing.
Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books.
74 UNIT 5: POINT OF VIEW
CONTENT 1.0 Introduction 2.0 Objectives 3.0 Main Content
3.1 Point of View
3.2 Omniscient Point of View 3.3 First Person Point of View 3.4 Second Person Point of View 3.5 Multiple Point of View 4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment 7.0 References/ Further Reading
1.0 INTRODUCTION
We must have learnt by now that a writer tells a story but we have not discussed how that story is told. A story teller may tell the story as if he/she is a participant in that story or present it in such a way that it will be clear that he or she is reporting what happened to others. This manner of narration is basically called point of view. In this unit we will discuss this point of view and the different types we have in prose fiction
2.0 OBJECTIVES
By the end of this unit, you should be able to
• Explain point of view
• List different types of point of view
• Identify the particular point of view used in a work.
75
• State the advantages and disadvantages of a particular point of view.