The Painted Door

272 Words2 Pages
How does Sinclair use setting to create atmosphere? In the story, “The Painted Door,” Sinclair Ross creates an atmosphere of bitter cold, extreme isolation and loneliness. The story is set in a cold freezing winter on a very stormy day, “the wind struck from all sides, blustering and furious”. The area around the protagonist’s house is isolated, barren farm land, and “five miles away” from the neighbours. This physical setting gives the reader a good understanding of how and where the story will follow, in what kind of surroundings. As Ann’s husband leaves to meet his father in this brutal weather, she can’t help but wonder how the day will pass in such lonely atmosphere and complete isolation, while praying and hoping her husband will return soon, “eager and hopeful first; then clenched, rebellious, lonely”. The entire story is based on the consequences of the combination of this kind of setting: extreme fierce weather, lonesome wife, husband away, and the ‘third’ person. Therefore, without this setting the purpose of the story wouldn’t have existed. In “The Painted Door” this feeling is excessively repeated from the beginning to the end, stressing vividly on the frosty weather and complete seclusion, “for so fierce now, so insane and dominant did the blizzard seem”. The setting makes the atmosphere and the mood of the reader mixed heavily with different feelings. It makes the reader extremely cold, heavy-hearted, saddened, detached, full of emotions, and sympathetic towards Ann, while being impatient to know what happens in the end – whether the husband returns home successfully the same day or waits till the
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