V
STORIES OF SETTING
The Outcasts of Poker Flat.—Bret Harte
Moonlight.—Guy de Maupassant
It is the habit of my imagination to strive after as full a vision of the medium in which a character moves as of the character itself. The psychological causes which prompted me to give such details of Florentine life and history as I have given [in Romola] are precisely the same as those which determined me in giving the details of English village life in Silas Marner or the “Dodson” life, out of which were developed the destinies of poor Tom and Maggie.—George Eliot, quoted in her Life by J. W. Cross.
STORIES OF SETTING
“Setting consists of the circumstances, material and immaterial, in which the characters are seen to move in the story. Its elements are time, place, occupations, and (I lack a more expressive word) conditions.”[24]
To be classified properly as a story of setting, a narrative must be more than merely rich in local-color—as the characteristic environment of a certain district, as set forth in fiction, is often called. The true story of setting is one in which the setting has a vital bearing on the natures or the destinies of the characters. To be sure, the setting of a story, like the staging of a play, has an important part in the realistic presentation of the scene, but setting assumes a predominating part when it actually moves the characters to certain deciding actions, as do the snow-storm in “The Outcasts of Poker Flat,” and the soft light of the moon in “Moonlight.”
The local-color story is one which could not have been set elsewhere without vitally changing, that is to say destroying, the story. For example, Balzac’s “The Unknown Masterpiece” is set almost entirely in an artist’s studio. The story would be slain by dragging it away from that atmosphere. But it is also a story of setting, because, whatever internal influences also affected the characters, the setting influences their destinies—the men and the women live lives as determined by their surroundings. “Mateo Falcone,” too, is a story of setting, but not primarily so; for while it could have happened only in Corsica, and the local-color is singularly vivid, it is primarily a story of human motive and action.
Because of the powerful effect of environment upon character—in fiction just as in real life—the reader often judges of coming events by the feeling of the setting. The stage manager knows this, too, and accompanies, or even forecasts, a moral crisis by having lights, music, sounds, and other stage accessories harmonize with the mood of the actors. Or, contrariwise, the tone of the piece may best be brought out by a setting in contrast.
Observe how in the two stories illustrating this type the authors never draw pictures of costumes and scenery just for the sake of description, as beginners might do. The setting, to Harte and Maupassant, is vitally a part of the story, and any unnecessary detail would mar the harmony of the whole. Too much were worse than too little.