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Paradox
Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Part 1, Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis:
The book is set in an unspecified large town or small city in England, sometime in the forseeable future (note that the novel was originally published in 1962). Alex lives in the rougher part of town, which is represented well by the crowd at the Korova Milkbar, where people go to get "milk-plus," or milk laced with drugs. He describes this crowd in Part 1, Chapter 3:
It was nadsats mostly milking and cooking and fillying around (nadsats were what we used to call the teens), but there were a few of the more starry ones, vecks and cheenas alike (but not of the bourgeois, never them) laughing and govoreeting at the bar [...] The devotchkas among them had these very lively litsos and wide big rots, very red, showing a lot of teeth, and smecking away and not caring about the wicked world one bit.
There is a sense of disorder in this description. Many things are going on at once: people are "milking," "cooking," "fillying," "laughing," "govoreeting," and "smecking" all at once. Additionally, Alex's description gives the city and its characters a kind of grotesque quality, particularly when describing the flippant young women or "devotchkas" with their red lips and big mouths.
This city recognizes the effects of social stratification, seeing that there are clear distinctions between the poorer, more dangerous zones and the wealthy areas. Alex describes this transition on his way to the "Manse" in Part 1, Chapter 6:
Just past the Duke of New York going east was offices and then there was the starry beat-up biblio and then was the bolshy flatblock called Victoria Flatblock after some victory or other, and then you came to the like starry type houses of the town in what was called Oldtown.
Alex astutely captures the surprisingly clear partitions of class that mark many urban environments, separating older, richer areas from modern housing developments.
Part 1, Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis:
The book is set in an unspecified large town or small city in England, sometime in the forseeable future (note that the novel was originally published in 1962). Alex lives in the rougher part of town, which is represented well by the crowd at the Korova Milkbar, where people go to get "milk-plus," or milk laced with drugs. He describes this crowd in Part 1, Chapter 3:
It was nadsats mostly milking and cooking and fillying around (nadsats were what we used to call the teens), but there were a few of the more starry ones, vecks and cheenas alike (but not of the bourgeois, never them) laughing and govoreeting at the bar [...] The devotchkas among them had these very lively litsos and wide big rots, very red, showing a lot of teeth, and smecking away and not caring about the wicked world one bit.
There is a sense of disorder in this description. Many things are going on at once: people are "milking," "cooking," "fillying," "laughing," "govoreeting," and "smecking" all at once. Additionally, Alex's description gives the city and its characters a kind of grotesque quality, particularly when describing the flippant young women or "devotchkas" with their red lips and big mouths.
This city recognizes the effects of social stratification, seeing that there are clear distinctions between the poorer, more dangerous zones and the wealthy areas. Alex describes this transition on his way to the "Manse" in Part 1, Chapter 6:
Just past the Duke of New York going east was offices and then there was the starry beat-up biblio and then was the bolshy flatblock called Victoria Flatblock after some victory or other, and then you came to the like starry type houses of the town in what was called Oldtown.
Alex astutely captures the surprisingly clear partitions of class that mark many urban environments, separating older, richer areas from modern housing developments.
