Main > Language Arts > LA 7 > Setting: Murder for Her Majesty

Assignment: "Write a one-page paper that discusses the author's use of setting in A Murder for Her Majesty. Does the author use the setting of the story effectively? Why or why not? What "facts" do you know merely because of the setting? In other words, are there any "facts" not explicitly stated by the author that you "know" anyway simply as a result of the particular setting? What would you change about the setting if you could? Why?"

Getting Started: 1) perhaps start with a bunch of phrases or ideas - maybe on note cards or something, just to get the brainstorming done. Answer the questions in the first paragraph. Maybe you don't want to use notecards - OK - just write out the ideas in paragraph form, but double space it, so you can make notes for the second part, once you're done. 2) I just had dd take a piece of paper and just write down her observations about the setting and anything she knew about the time period without being told. That seemed to help her get some ideas at least.

Then go back and look at what has been written already, and edit it to suit the second paragraph's instructions. I'd start with the "specific examples from the story" part - write in a page number or chapter or something - use blue/purple/green/red ink so it really stands out on the page, from the pencil/pen/computer black ink that is already on the page.
For me, the hardest part would be following that last line of instruction (make it interesting) - I'm not very creative, so I'd have a hard time with that aspect. But frankly, I almost think that THIS part is the least important - the analysis is more important to me (and more likely to be what a college assignment might entail) than the creative non-boring presentation.

Alternate Suggestions:The way I approached the assignment was to ask:

  • What were the main settings of the book?
    • She said -Time Period
    • Cathedral/Dormitory
    • Fathers mansion where murder occurred
  • What do those setting represent to the character?
  • How are the setting used to support the story.
This paper took a decent amount of discussion before she started writing. I really had to ask her many questions to get her to analyze the setting. Literary analysis is new to her this year.
Her Intro: "Alice was cold." (A Murder for Her Majesty, Page 1) As from the moment you open the book you already are hit with emotion. From these three words, you already know that Alice is in a cold surrounding and it's probably winter. Questions come to mind. Why isn't she in a house by the fire? Or, why isn't someone with her to keep her warm? Just in those three words! And if you read the rest of the paragraph you see that she is alone and hungry. How an author uses settings is important to tell information about the story.
from there she discussed the main setting during Queen Elizabeth I reign in the Shambles of London.
Then the setting of the mansion she lived in with her father that demonstrated she was from a wealthy background. This made you feel for the character more knowing that she was once a wealthy citizen and now an orphan with nothing.
She then discussed the Cathedral as a setting. How it represented a safe place for her to stay (even though the bad guy ended up being there) and through it she was able to re-establish a life of worship and learning.

Alternate Suggestion 2: We looked at the setting as the city (was it London or York, I forget now) and the time period (again, I forget, was it Elizabethan England?). My question to my son for brainstorming was to think of what about the location or time period added background or depth to the story that you would have missed had we not been studying the period. I wanted him to find elements of the story (character, plot, conflict) that were enhanced or made to come more alive by our understanding of the background.

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