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Personification
Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Setting
Explanation and Analysis:
Though the setting of “The Doll’s House” is not made explicit, scholars agree that it is likely set in the small town of Karori, New Zealand—where Mansfield grew up—at the turn of the 20th century. The town is so small that children across socioeconomic classes attend the same school, as the narrator describes in the following passage:
For the fact was, the school the Burnell children went to was not at all the kind of place their parents would have chosen if there had been any choice. But there was none. It was the only school for miles. And the consequence was all the children in the neighborhood, the Judge’s little girls, the doctor’s daughters, the storekeeper’s children, the milkman’s, were forced to mix together.
As the narrator explains, children from wealthier backgrounds (“the Judge’s little girls, the doctor’s daughters”) and from more working-class backgrounds (“the storekeeper’s children, the milkman’s”) “were forced to mix together.” The resentful tone the narrator uses here is significant—they are channeling the feelings of the wealthy Mr. and Mrs. Burnell, who do not want Isabel, Lottie, and Kezia to “mix” with children of lower status.
It is notable that the Burnells view themselves as superior to others due to their class position when there are clues in the story that point to the Burnell family being less-than-elite. In other words, it is likely that other people in the British Empire (such as aristocratic families in England) would look down on the Burnells, who live a more provincial life in rural New Zealand. Mansfield intentionally highlights the absurdity of classism and rigid hierarchies here and throughout the story.
Related Themes:
