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Pathos
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
Key Examples in The Mayor of Casterbridge
Setting
Explanation and Analysis:
The Mayor of Casterbridge is set in the fictional town of Casterbridge in the imaginary county of Wessex, an area in the south of England in which Hardy locates most of his realist fiction. "Casterbridge" is based on the town of Dorsetshire, a real place in the county of Dorset where Hardy himself grew up. Wessex as a delineated area actually used to exist in ancient Britain, and Hardy invokes ideas of longevity and a strong relationship to English history by reclaiming this space for his writing. The action of the novel occurs somewhere around the late 1840s, and Hardy based many of the social concerns of the book, such as food shortages and income inequality, on real events happening in his own lifetime.
