In the stories Lord of The Flies and “I Only Came To Use The Phone”, there are countless instances where setting obviously affected the characters actions, but there are also instances in which it was not so obvious. Settings in these stories are crucial to how characters act as normal as they do at their house, how they act stirred up or anxious, as well as how they act mad or insane. By examining the textual evidence in Lord of The Flies and “I Only Came To Use The Phone”, setting is proven to be a key factor in how characters act, building up from normal behavior to seemingly mad behavior.
There are instances in the beginning of both Lord of The Flies and “I Only Came To Use The Phone” in which characters act like they typically would if they were not thrown into horrible situations as they later are; they act normal and calmed. In “I Only Came To Use The Phone”, it says, “Their serenity was contagious, and Maria curled up in her seat and succumbed to the sound of the rain” (Marquez 72). Maria is surrounded by calm people and the rain is a soothing effect from nature when one is attempting to sleep, therefore her actions are directly affected and she then takes a nap herself. She does not understand the full extent of her situation so she does not feel worried. Maria is also feeling calmed by the lighting being given off as well as the women with her in general. The passage says, “They were all older women, and their movements were so lethargic in the half-light of the courtyard that they looked like images in a dream” (Marquez 73). She compares the looks of around her to that of a dream. Dreams are always thought of as a good homely feeling since when it is a bad-dream it is considered a nightmare. This shows the direct c...
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... things that are not actually real such as the beast. The kids chant, “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!” (Golding 152). The kids are in the final stage of the dehydration/isolation the setting causes them to have and they are no longer their normal selves.
As one can see, Maria in “I Only Came To Use The Phone” and the children in Lord of The Flies were heavily affected by the setting in their respective stories which caused them to go from their normal/typical selves, then to them a little bit on edge and or anxious, and then finally to mad and or insane. Setting plays a huge role is stories such as these two.
Works Cited
Garcia, Marquez Gabriel. “I Only Came To Use The Phone.” Strange Pilgrims: Twelve Stories. New York: Knopf, 1993. N. pag. Print.
Golding, William. Lord Of The Flies. New York: Coward-McCann, 1962. Print.
García, Márquez G. "I Only Came to Use the Phone." Strange Pilgrims: Twelve Stories. New York: Knopf, 1993. Print.
Rodriguez, Ralph. "Chicana/o Fiction from Resistance to Contestation: The Role of Creation in Ana Castillo's So Far From God."MELUS. 25.2 (2000): 63-87. Print.
"A Pair of Tickets" and "Everything That Rises Must Converge" are good examples of how setting explores place, heritage, and ethnic identity to give us a better understanding of the characters. In "A Pair of Tickets" Jing-Mei Woo discovers for herself what makes her Chinese and the setting played an important role in helping us understand how she came to this discovery. The setting in "Everything That Rises Must Converge" gave us a good understanding of why the characters acted as they did to the situations presented. The setting in both of these stories greatly contributed to the understanding the characters better and in general the whole story.
In a story that is known to last throughout the ages, there is a certain characteristic that makes it worth reading and studying. Whether it be the character, plot development, or even the climax, there is always a certain hook to the text. In most cases, it is the sensory words that are used to explain the setting, time period, and events of a story. Overall, the setting is what can really illuminate the story to its full potential if it’s used correctly. In two particular texts, setting is used imaginatively, and creatively. In the texts, Old Man of the Temple, and The Man to Send Rain Clouds, the setting (including the values and attitudes held by the people of that time) influences the characters and story events by means of culture, “clique” activity, and era of the setting.
Swanson, Philip. "The Critical Reception of Garciá Márquez." The Cambridge Companion to Gabriel Garciá Márquez. New York: Cambridge UP, 2010. 25-40. Print.
Often, too much power can go to that particular person’s head, and he/she can become corrupt. As readers have seen in literature, abuses of power are often harmful to the abuser and their subjects. Corrupted authority and abuses of power eventually lead to the collapse of society. This concept is shown many times throughout the novel Lord Of the Flies and the short story “I Only Came to Use the Phone”. Displayed through characters and actions, abusive power has dominated what should be morally correct in literature.
The setting of a story is the physical and social context in which the action of a story occurs.(Meyer 1635) The setting can also set the mood of the story, which will help readers to get a better idea pf what is happening. The major elements of the setting are the time, place, and social environment that frame the characters. (Meyer 1635) "Trifles by Susan Glaspell portrays a gloomy, dark, and lonely setting. Glaspell uses symbolic objects to help the audience get a better understanding for the characters. The three symbolizes used are a birdcage, a bird, and rope.
Style: The typical Magical- Realistic story of García Márquez placed in a familiar environment where supernatural things take place as if they were everyday occurrences. Main use of long and simple sentences with quite a lot of detail. "There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth, and his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather took away and sense of grandeur he might have had" (589).
Much of history’s most renown literature have real-world connections hidden in them, although they may be taxing uncover. William Golding’s classic, Lord of the Flies, is no exception. In this work of art, Golding uses the three main characters, Piggy, Jack, and Ralph, to symbolize various aspects of human nature through their behaviors, actions, and responses.
The setting or settings in a novel are often an important element in the work. Many novels use contrasting places such as cities or towns, to represent opposing forces or ideas that are central to the meaning of the work. In Thomas Hardy's novel, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, the contrasting settings of Talbothays Dairy and Flintcomb-Ash represent the opposing forces of good and evil in Tess' life.
In a person’s lifetime, one is able to see the cause and effect the world around the individual has on one’s life. People are affected by the culture in which they live in and are affected by the history of their homeland. One can see these effects in the real world and in the fictional worlds of books, plays, and poetry. In the land of fiction, readers can find several examples of how a character’s psyche has been shaped by the culture and history that surrounds the character. One such example would be Madam Lubov Ranyevskaya from Chekhov’s famous play, The Cherry Orchard. One can see how her cultural and historical context has shaped her behavior, her relationships with those around her, and her family dynamics.
García Màrquez, Gabriel, trans. Gregory Rabassa. One Hundred Years of Solitude. (New York: Harper & Row, 1998.)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez background has been influenced as many people in small Colombian towns with magical stories loaded of divinity when the strange event of nature has no other way to be explain from them(Latin people) that divinity, even when any event has an scientific explanation is not accept for them because of the culture. This...
(422). Liberal Studies 402, on Tuesday, March 28, 1995, by Ian Johnston (lecture). Works Cited:.. Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude.
In Lord of the Flies, the use of both dialogue and narrative aids in the movement of the plot. Because the reader cannot assume the thoughts of the characters, the author uses dialogue throughout the novel in order for the thoughts and feelings of certain characters to be understood. In addition to dialogue, the plot contains a large amount of narrative, which enables features such as the characters and plot situations to be properly described to the reader.