MYP English Lang & Lit 2.2 Setting Notes

Setting Is More Than a Backdrop: It Shapes Meaning, Mood, and Persuasion

1. Setting is one of the most powerful choices a writer, filmmaker, or advertiser makes.
2. It is not just "where things happen." Setting influences what audiences feel, what they expect, and what message they take away.

Why setting matters

1. Setting can:
   1. create mood and atmosphere
   2. build tension
   3. influence character behaviour
   4. symbolise ideas or themes
   5. affect plot movement
2. Change the setting, and the story changes.

Types of setting (the useful ones)

1. Physical setting
   1. Where events happen (room, city, landscape)
2. Temporal setting
   1. When events happen (past, present, night, winter)
3. Social setting
   1. The rules and pressures of society (family, class, school, culture)

Setting and mood

1. Setting helps create mood through:
   1. weather
   2. lighting
   3. space
   4. silence or noise

Setting and character

1. Setting can:
   1. trap characters
   2. protect characters
   3. challenge characters
   4. reflect characters’ emotions

Setting and symbolism

1. Settings often act as symbols:
   1. a house can represent memory or confinement
   2. a road can represent change
   3. a locked space can represent fear or control

Setting and plot movement

1. Setting can:
   1. slow the plot (pauses, reflection)
   2. speed it up (danger, urgency)
   3. force decisions
2. Where a scene happens often explains why it happens that way.

Using PEEL to analyse setting

P: Point

1. Identify how the setting is used.
   1. creates tension
   2. reflects emotion
   3. symbolises an idea

E: Evidence

1. Quote a specific detail about the setting.

E: Explain

1. Explain:
   1. what the setting detail suggests
   2. how it affects mood, character, or plot

L: Link

1. Link back to the same effect named in the Point.

Now it's your turn...