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Satire
Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Chapter 35
Explanation and Analysis:
Demon Copperfield is set in and around Lee County, Virginia in the 1990s and early 2000s. Lee County is in the heart of Appalachia, a geographical and cultural region located along the southern and central sections of the Appalachian mountain range. Mr. Armstrong, Demon’s middle-school history teacher, emphasizes the region’s historical relationship to coal-mining:
In Mr. Armstrong’s Backgrounds project we learned one thing: if you throw a rock in Lee County, you will hit somebody with a family that’s worked coal. Almost everybody in our class had great-grandparents that came over from some country to work in the mines. Or they were here already, and worked in the mines. They told stories of all the kids in a family ending up working in a mine underneath the same land that was bought from them. The coal guys came in here buying up land without mentioning the buried treasure under it. And then all that was left was to work.
The novel portrays Lee County and the surrounding areas as economically underdeveloped despite the fact that those living there are eager for work. In his lesson, Mr. Armstrong notes that most of his students have family members who once worked in the mines that were, historically, the primary economic engine of the region. Despite the importance of the region’s lumber and coal industries, however, Appalachia has remained economically under-developed, a situation worsened by mechanized mining and environmentally unsustainable practices. The novel presents the people of Lee County as resilient despite high unemployment and the negative effects of the Opioid Crisis.
Related Themes:
