Anthropomorphic Scenery

“Literary geography is typically about humans inhabiting spaces, and at the same time the spaces that inhabit humans. Who can say how much of us comes from our physical surroundings? Writers can, at least in their own works, for their own purposes... Geography is setting, but it's also (or can be) psychology, attitude, finance, industry—anything that a place can forge in the people who live there. Geography in literature can be so much more. It can be revelatory of virtually any element in the work.” - Chapter Nineteen: “Geography Matters...” pages 165-166

Personally I couldn't agree more with the content of Chapter Nineteen, and furthermore I believe it is one of the most ignored, or overlooked, elements in literature, concerning that of the everyday, casual reading experience. Due to this perceived deficiency, I wish that Foster could have expanded on a few of the potentials of settings in literature. Foster examines the the possibilities of creating expectations for audiences, the necessities of context, plot progression, etcetera, through the means of geographical decisions made on the part of the writer. Little time is spent, however, on the use of setting to reflect certain qualities in characters. Similarly, Foster does describe how specific geographic settings can foreshadow character development (or decay) and plot action, but does not explicitly confront the way in which setting can be utilized as mirrored images. Opportunities lay at hand when appraising the landscape of fiction, more so even than Foster relays in his brief discussion of the matter. As readers we must not only recognize how a location affects the tone, plot action, and context, but also how environments can resemble the characters themselves, in order to understand them more fully. Unfortunately the first example that comes to mind is The English Patient. László de Almásy, one of the main characters of the novel, is a desert cartographer who is very learned, yet abrasive. European social customs seem arbitrary to him, and somewhat limiting. The desert that he so fondly explores, in many ways personifies his personality: solemn, severe, and passionate when a storm arises. The very shape of the land drives him to his desires, that later construct his entire future. From a writer's perspective it is much easier to compare a person's hostility to the heat of the desert, or his love as vast and immense as the Sahara. Michael Ondaatje manages to relay both just by placing his complex character in an even more cryptic region. Geographical locations of literary works can intensify, if not define character attributes, adding to the effectiveness and symbolism of a text.