The impact of location in literature

New launch: Impact of location in literature

This week sees the next theme covered by Crossref-it.info’s Only Connect tool, where they trace a theme across various works of literature, including its classical and/or biblical origins. ‘The impact of location’ makes for a fruitful personal exploration (required for a number of A Level English syllabuses) of how place is perceived in literature.

The associations of place

Gloomy caves;
                    open greens;
                                        darkened woodlands;
                                                            arid fields;
                                                                                gleaming urban sprawl;
                                                                                                    humble cottages...

When we encounter any one of these locations, we have an expectation of what might be likely to happen there. But why?

For centuries associations have grown up around locations and the atmosphere associated with them. These allusions have been created by fairy-tales, ancient myths and biblical narratives, then sustained by centuries of literature:

• Shakespeare deliberately places his characters in woodland or castle, wild coast or tavern knowing that we will expect certain sorts of behavior because of those locations
• Blake sometimes subverts our expectations, turning a place of pleasure into a place of threat, just as Graham Greene was to do 150 years later in Brighton Rock.

It’s fascinating to see how location has an impact on events and characters, sometimes seeming to determine the plot itself:

• In Tess of the d’Urbervilles Hardy draws on the ancient classical anxiety of dense woodland and biblical suspicion of sophisticated urban environments, yet by no means upholds the simplistic pastoral ideal that associates the countryside with happy innocence
• Jean Rhys uses location in Wide Sargasso Sea to disorientate characters, destabilising their sense of identity and thus effecting their subsequent actions.

The impact of location in literature is huge. Why not explore it for yourself.