The Story of an Hour

In literature, setting refers to the location, time period, and daily lifestyle of characters. In many short stories such as Kate Chopin's "The Story of An Hour", Van Der Zee's " A Secret Sorrow", Andrus Dubrus " Killings", Gail Godwin's " A Sorrowful Woman", and William Faulkner's " A Rose For Emily", setting plays an important role. The setting of these literature works has a major impact on the following literary elements protagonist, external conflict, and theme.

The setting of a story often has an impact on the protagonist of the story. The protagonist is the leading character, or hero in a literary work. Mrs. Mallard is the protagonist in Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour". Mrs. Mallards husband was killed in a train accident. When she had heard the news about her husband, surprisingly Mallard was happy because now she feels free and independent. Although Mrs. Mallard loved her husband, she is still enjoying her new freedom. Setting tends to affect Mrs. Mallard in many ways. In the 1880's woman were not granted many rights, they didn't feel like they had freedom at all. When her husband died she finally felt free and independent at that point in time. Mallard is happy with her new life, and the rest of society might never accept it. If the story were to take place now in 2011 Mrs. Mallard's reaction to her husband's death would have probably been much different. Also in Van Der Zee's "A Secret Sorrow" the setting also affected the protagonist of the story. The main character, Faye was involved in a serious car accident in the past. Due to this car accident this robbed her ability of ever having children. After the accident, Faye broke off an engagement with her finance and moved in with her brother. There, she fell in love with her brother's friend, Kai, to whom she had to reveal her injury to. The story takes place in 1981. Back then society was telling Faye that she's not a woman and that she couldn't be happy. She couldn't be happy because she couldn't have children. This shows men were taking over society. After marriage most men are going to want a family, and Faye could not provide that for Kai. If this were to happen today things would have been different. Faye could have gotten surgery to have children again. But back then no one had the knowledge to do surgery. Society has progressed so much since 1981.

Setting also influenced external conflict. The external conflict is the problem in the story. Gail Godwin's " A Sorrowful Woman" also shows how external conflict affects the setting of a story. The external conflict in the short story is the idea of marriage. Marriage in most societies is a life-fulfilling dream for most women. The story takes place in 1971. Godwin's story shows how society is dictating what your life should be. Back then when you got married, there was