Themes: Literary Theme as it Relates to Setting and Conflict
A compelling story captures the audience quickly and keeps them enthralled throughout the duration of the read. Authors, understanding this concept, incorporate immense detail into their work in order to keep the reader absorbed. This detail launches with setting, and culminates into conflict. Artfully, master writers use these details to establish a strong central and over-arching theme for their writings. Authors such as Herman Melville, Kate Chopin, and John Steinbeck use setting and conflict to create theme.
In his nautical novel, Billy Budd, Herman Melville deliberates the idea of conscience versus law and the vulnerability of innocence. Billy Budd, a newly impressed crew member …show more content…
In Kate Chopin’s A Pair of Silk Stockings, protagonist Mrs. Sommers is her own worst enemy- her own antagonist. After becoming the new-found owner of fifteen dollars, Mrs. Sommers embarks to save the money for her children. But situations tempt Mrs. Sommers, and she spends all of the money on herself, left with a powerful desire to never return to her duties as a mother (Chopin, 1897). Set in the city, A Pair of Silk Stockings focuses on the need for self-assertion within repression through one woman’s spontaneous spending-spree. Mrs. Sommers, newly divorced and left with three children, loathes her life. She has fallen into a daily routine where her children always come first; she can no longer lounge in the money and wealth she had before her marriage. After discovering a new source of short wealth, Mrs. Sommers is obliged to relax and spend time on herself. Chopin, after Mrs. Sommers is seated for a show at the theatre, describes to the reader that “there were many others who were there solely for the play and acting. It is safe to say there was no one present who bore quite the attitude which Mrs. Sommers did to her surroundings” (Chopin, 1897). Mrs. Sommers enjoyed the performance; Mrs. Sommers enjoyed relishing in the wealth she had once known. Within the city, Mrs. Sommers can find no end to buying happiness so long as she has money. The very fact of the city-scape and money lead Chopin into addressing the need of a person to end the repression from society and search for inner self-assertion. Without either of these factors, Kate Chopin isn’t able to establish a strong central theme for A Pair of Silk
A compelling story captures the audience quickly and keeps them enthralled throughout the duration of the read. Authors, understanding this concept, incorporate immense detail into their work in order to keep the reader absorbed. This detail launches with setting, and culminates into conflict. Artfully, master writers use these details to establish a strong central and over-arching theme for their writings. Authors such as Herman Melville, Kate Chopin, and John Steinbeck use setting and conflict to create theme.
In his nautical novel, Billy Budd, Herman Melville deliberates the idea of conscience versus law and the vulnerability of innocence. Billy Budd, a newly impressed crew member …show more content…
In Kate Chopin’s A Pair of Silk Stockings, protagonist Mrs. Sommers is her own worst enemy- her own antagonist. After becoming the new-found owner of fifteen dollars, Mrs. Sommers embarks to save the money for her children. But situations tempt Mrs. Sommers, and she spends all of the money on herself, left with a powerful desire to never return to her duties as a mother (Chopin, 1897). Set in the city, A Pair of Silk Stockings focuses on the need for self-assertion within repression through one woman’s spontaneous spending-spree. Mrs. Sommers, newly divorced and left with three children, loathes her life. She has fallen into a daily routine where her children always come first; she can no longer lounge in the money and wealth she had before her marriage. After discovering a new source of short wealth, Mrs. Sommers is obliged to relax and spend time on herself. Chopin, after Mrs. Sommers is seated for a show at the theatre, describes to the reader that “there were many others who were there solely for the play and acting. It is safe to say there was no one present who bore quite the attitude which Mrs. Sommers did to her surroundings” (Chopin, 1897). Mrs. Sommers enjoyed the performance; Mrs. Sommers enjoyed relishing in the wealth she had once known. Within the city, Mrs. Sommers can find no end to buying happiness so long as she has money. The very fact of the city-scape and money lead Chopin into addressing the need of a person to end the repression from society and search for inner self-assertion. Without either of these factors, Kate Chopin isn’t able to establish a strong central theme for A Pair of Silk