Question

Setting has a tremendous impact on certain genres, and there is no place where it is more essential than in Gothic fiction. The unit details the reasons and ways that setting is so enormously important for the Gothic fiction genre, but it does not clearly explain how setting has a serious impact on other genres. Choose one of the following genres and explore how setting is important to that genre: thriller or suspense, fairytale, horror, or western.

Answer 1

Answer and Explanation:

When it comes to fairy tales, setting is extremely important to help establish that aura of mystery and magic, a sense that "everything is possible".

Fairy tales usually take place in a far-away land, or in an exotic land, never at a place close to home. That is obviously intentional. What is close to home is not magical, is not mysterious. But a land that is far away, filled with princes and princesses, a land that no one has ever heard of - now that is a place where anything can happen. People can be turned into frogs, witches can curse babies and poison apples, pumpkins can be transformed into carriages, simple people can marry royalty they met a couple of nights ago. None of that would be possible if it weren't for the distant, mysterious land. Time or era is also vague. We tend to associate princes and princesses with older times, but fairy tales will never specify when. That only enhances the feeling of uncertainty, leaving plenty of room for thrilling situations to occur.