When and where is the story set?

When and where is the story set? Why might this be?

In Angela Carter's The Erl King, the setting is a very important part of the story. The reader knows this because the first two pages are dedicated to describing the setting, 'there is no way through the wood anymore, this wood has reverted to its original privacy.' Carter's description of the woods creates a threatening and dreary scene, however a lone, young girl is unfazed by the threatening woods, 'A young girl will go into the woods as trustingly as Red Riding Hood', she enters them without hesitation.

The forest setting represents a place away from civilisation and its influences for the narrator, this means that she is able to show different aspects of her personality and Carter has portrayed this by changing the narrative perspective. It implies that the narrator is telling the story, but she is also somewhat like an outsider looking in on her own story and learning from it.

Angela Carter's use of colour in The Erl King are dull and give a sense of death, which is unusual because a forest is expected to be full of bright colours and life, 'a sky hunkered with grey clouds', 'it struck the wood with nicotine stained fingers',Carter has created a typically Gothic setting.

Another aspect of the setting that Carter has developed into a Gothic theme is the wildlife in the forest. The Erl King keeps birds in cages in his house, 'cage upon cage of singing birds', creating the Gothic theme of entrapment, birds which are usually free animals trapped inside without escape.