The Doll’s House

by Katherine Mansfield

The Doll’s House: Setting 1 key example

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
Setting
Explanation and Analysis:

Though the setting of “The Doll’s House” is not made explicit, scholars agree that it is likely set in the small town of Karori, New Zealand—where Mansfield grew up—at the turn of the 20th century. The town is so small that children across socioeconomic classes attend the same school, as the narrator describes in the following passage:

For the fact was, the school the Burnell children went to was not at all the kind of place their parents would have chosen if there had been any choice. But there was none. It was the only school for miles. And the consequence was all the children in the neighborhood, the Judge’s little girls, the doctor’s daughters, the storekeeper’s children, the milkman’s, were forced to mix together.