Imagine.......

Author's note- A setting means where a story takes place to most people, but to me it means more. It means how the people are feeling about where they are as well as the actions of the people because of their feelings.  I never can limit a setting to just a place because I couldn't write a paper about a place.  What is there to write other than like, "It was dirty" or "There was a weird looking goat at the fair".  To me it is more like how a real place really is, like, "I squelched the gooey sand in between my toes and it felt cool land relaxing" or "I screamed at the sight of the thing, it was green yellow and red!" To me the setting is a close second in my list of what things are the most important things to have in an essay (after the characters having actual feelings) and if the setting is not explained well enough, it is just a place, not a time.

Without real feelings or actions, a setting is just a place.  But with the dedication of the author and the imaginations of the reader it becomes a whole lot more. I always like to see myself as the main character in a story and go through life as someone else.  It is fun to escape your real life for a while and become someone else.  So I ask that you try to picture yourself as a Jew trapped at Awswitch, living on hardly rations of food and horribly unsanitary  conditions.  Travel back over 60 years to relive the horrors of the past.  They can never be forgotten.

Throughout her entire life the girl had heard about poverty and about how lucky she was to be living in a house with a mother, father and little brother.  She had never been especially rich or popular, but this was terrible.  The cots were ancient, ripped from seam to seam, some had even had little clumps of dried leaves, their filling, popping out.  She laid down and stared at the ceiling, which was dipping in many places.  She saw some leaks in it which formed large puddles of some gross liquid that looked nothing at all like rainwater and most likely wasn't.  She heard a whistle outside and rose up along with all the rest of the children in her room and lined up by age at the door.  Pain shot up her leg and she screamed. It was a mouse trap, attached to her bare foot.  She knelt down and tried to pry it off.  The girl knew that if the officer came by and saw that she wasn't standing like all the rest of the kids there would be punishment.  After the hunk of metal let up it's grip she stood up and reached into her pocket feeling for the key.  It was the key that was going to ruin her life.  It was Sarah's key. 

This is how I imagine the setting of the Jewish concentration camp of  Awswitch being.  The stench unbearable.  The dirt floor muddy from all the leaks in the ceiling.  The nightmares you can never forget.  I really wonder how they could put people through that, and terrorize them for nothing at all. I can't imagine what was going through the prisoner's minds there.  Even though it was a sad and sickening part to read it is necessary to include it because otherwise there wouldn't be a point to the story.  The whole book is about that scene and if they didn't have it in there then the entire book would fall apart.  Also if there was any less vile conditions then   it wouldn't be as heartfelt a story.  You can't make every story a happy ending for fear that people might not like it, but you have to tell the truth, no matter how  sad and painful it is.