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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:
“The Management of Grief” is set primarily in an Indian-Canadian community in Toronto, with cuts to scenes in Ireland and India. The story is a fictionalized account of the aftermath of the real-life terrorist bombing of Air India Flight 182 on June 23, 1985, in which Canadian Sikh extremists killed all 329 passengers heading from Montreal to Mumbai. The plane exploded before its first stop in London, going down in Irish waters.
The story follows Shaila, an Indian-Canadian woman, as she reckons with the loss of her husband and two sons who were on the flight. It opens in Toronto on the day after the bombing as Shaila and her extended community process the news, then follows Shaila to Ireland to (unsuccessfully) identify the bodies of her family members, then to India to seek emotional support from her parents, and ultimately back to Toronto to return to her life.
Mukherjee, who lived for a time in Toronto, captures the specific details of the Indian enclave in the city where her characters live, as seen in the following passage:
The high-rise apartment is a tower of Indians and West Indians, with a sprinkling of Orientals. The nearest bus stop kiosk is lined with women in saris. Boys practice cricket in the parking lot. Inside the building, even I wince a bit from the ferocity of onion fumes, the distinctive and immediate Indianness of frying ghee.
In this passage, Shaila is entering an apartment building in order to visit an elderly Indian couple who lost their sons in the terrorist attack. Mukherjee includes specific details to help readers understand that this building is in a part of Toronto with a large Indian immigrant population, such as the description of the building as “a tower of Indians and West Indians,” the note about the bus stop being “lined with women in saris,” and the sensory description of the “ferocity of the onion fumes” and the “distinctive and immediate Indianness of frying ghee.” These details add to the realism of the story and help readers unfamiliar with this community imagine themselves into the setting.
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