Setting in Fiction

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Setting in Fiction
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Kate Chopin
1851-1904
Biography
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Discussion prompt
The authors, on page 84, affirm . . .
often, in an effective short story, setting may
figure as more than mere backdrop or
underpinning. It can make things happen. It can
prompt characters to act, bring them to
realizations, or cause them to reveal their
innermost natures.
Discuss your view of these points as it relates
to Chopins The Storm.
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Discussion prompts
What do you think causes Caxlixtas infidelity?
What does Chopin tell us about difference between
passion and love?
Does she love her husband?
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Discussion prompts
The last line of the story is So the
storm passed and everyone was happy.
Do you find this ironic? If so, at
whose expense? the lovers? the betrayed
spouses? the institution of marriage?
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Possible theme for The Storm (based on an
analysis of the primary conflict protagonist
vs. herself)
A woman who is confined to a marriage that
is dispassionate may be sparked to sexual
desire by mysterious forces which help to effect
in her a sense of liberation from repression.
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T. Coraghessan Boyle
Born 1948 Biography
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Some critics think that the narrators voicing of
two views of nature--par. 2 and par. 32--makes
it apparent that he has had an epiphanic
moment? Do you agree? Disagree?
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Question about setting
Although the lake itself is fetid, with its
primordial ooze and bad breath of decay,
i.e., characterized by stasis, do you also see it
as a force for change?
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When at the end of the story the girl
offers them drugs and a chance to party, why do
you think the narrator says, I thought I was
going to cry?
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Possible Theme for Greasy Lake based on an
analysis of the primary conflict narrator vs.
himself
The various experiences young adults have on
their road to maturity may lead them to unleash
violent passions, confront their own mortality,
and recognize the need for an exploration of self
as well as a recognition of human limitations
these lessons, perhaps due to careless
behavior and a distraction of their ideals,
often, if the people are not obdurate, provide
them the strength to move from innocence to
potentiality.