Setting Post

In the book Mississippi Solo by Eddy L. Harris, Eddy creates his own setting by his word choice and description he uses when explaining even the simplest things. This is shown when Eddy says, "My imagination constructed a dilapidated and shaky span of old wooden slats, rotted and narrow and weak with no concrete support anywhere. The iron girders that held the poor thing up were ancient and rusty, orange and bumpy with oxidation where they should have been shiny and black" (1). This shows how eddy uses his word choice and description for setting because just by explaining the bridge they went over, you can tell that the setting is the mid-late 1900's during rough times with money, since this bridge was described so roughly in Eddy's mind. This is also shown when Eddy states, "This man, at least, was an insurance broker, and while we waited for the waitress to finish talking to whomever, he brought up the weather and asked me where i was from. I told him and said what i was doing and he laughed, pointing out the women in their jackets, and he said: 'You should have a jacket like that. Instead of River Rat it should say River Nigger" (70). This shows that Eddy is in the racism era in part of its roughest times because Eddy doesn't even defend himself against this white man maybe because he was still scared to or he just was not looking for any trouble, but this description builds tension and gives you a clear idea of this harsh setting it takes place in.