Setting describes the place, the social aspects, geographical locations, population, ancestral influence, and many other elements. Indeed, setting influence audience reception of a story and how they connect with it. Setting can also reveal a lot about the lifestyle of the characters in a piece of literature. Leila Aboulela’s Souvenir and Francisco Jimenez’s the The Circuit are both set in different setting that influence their meaning and interaction with the audience. In this essay, I will compare the settings in Souvenir and The Circuit. Both artists explore the various elements of setting to enrich the plot development of their stories.
Viewed from the geographical aspects, The Circuit uses Mexico and America’s California to tell the story. The narrator in the story says that, “that is how I found out he was from Jalisco, the …show more content…
Yassir’s mother appears skeptical about Emma – Yassir’s wife. In fact, Emma is an outsider in the eyes of Yassir’s mother. She would not say Emma's name. She would not 'remember' it. It would have been the same if Emma had been Jane,Alison or Susan, any woman from 'outside',” (Aboulela 1). Even conversations between Manaal and her mother has to adhere to the dictum of culture where Manaal is not supposed to look her mother straight in the eye. When Manaal is speaking to Yassir, she must not look straight in his eyes. In The Circuit, the language seems to point at identity. Papa always speak English with some broken Spanish – ‘Ya esora,’ he yelled in his broken Spanish,” (Jimenez 1). Again, when the narrator is at school, the linguistic plays a part in how he interacts with people. “When I entered I heard a woman’s voice say: "May I help you?" I was startled,” (Jimenez 4). In other words, the narrator has a different language that affects marks his identity as an outsider in that foreign
Viewed from the geographical aspects, The Circuit uses Mexico and America’s California to tell the story. The narrator in the story says that, “that is how I found out he was from Jalisco, the …show more content…
Yassir’s mother appears skeptical about Emma – Yassir’s wife. In fact, Emma is an outsider in the eyes of Yassir’s mother. She would not say Emma's name. She would not 'remember' it. It would have been the same if Emma had been Jane,Alison or Susan, any woman from 'outside',” (Aboulela 1). Even conversations between Manaal and her mother has to adhere to the dictum of culture where Manaal is not supposed to look her mother straight in the eye. When Manaal is speaking to Yassir, she must not look straight in his eyes. In The Circuit, the language seems to point at identity. Papa always speak English with some broken Spanish – ‘Ya esora,’ he yelled in his broken Spanish,” (Jimenez 1). Again, when the narrator is at school, the linguistic plays a part in how he interacts with people. “When I entered I heard a woman’s voice say: "May I help you?" I was startled,” (Jimenez 4). In other words, the narrator has a different language that affects marks his identity as an outsider in that foreign