How Settings Define Characters in Into the Wild and Sex and the City
This essay examines how setting functions as a defining force for characters in two very different narratives: the film adaptation of Into the Wild and Sex and the City. Drawing on Christopher McCandless's immersion in the remote American wilderness and Carrie Bradshaw's life in New York City, the paper argues that characters are shaped by their interactions with their surroundings. The essay explores how urban and natural environments each present unique challenges that push characters beyond societal expectations, ultimately contributing to their growth, identity, and role in illuminating broader social themes.
- Introduction: The Role of Setting in Storytelling: Setting as essential storytelling element in film and literature
- Carrie Bradshaw and the Urban Environment of New York City: How New York City shapes Carrie Bradshaw's identity
- Christopher McCandless and the Natural Wilderness: Wilderness forces McCandless beyond class expectations
- Conclusion: Settings as Mirrors of Character and Society: Both films show setting illuminating broader social issues
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What makes this paper effective
- The essay uses a clear comparative framework, placing two contrasting settings — urban New York City and the remote American wilderness — in productive dialogue with each other.
- Specific plot examples (Carrie's jilting at the altar, McCandless's flash flood) ground abstract claims about setting in concrete narrative evidence.
- The introduction and conclusion effectively bookend the argument with the Oscars framing, giving the essay a memorable rhetorical structure.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates comparative textual analysis by identifying a shared thematic concept — setting as a shaper of character — across two distinct works, then tracing how each work applies that concept differently. This technique allows the writer to draw broader conclusions about the importance of setting in storytelling as a whole.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with a broad claim about setting's importance in film and literature, supported by the Oscars analogy. It then devotes one body paragraph each to Sex and the City and Into the Wild, analyzing a specific character-setting interaction in each. The conclusion synthesizes both examples to reaffirm the thesis and return to the opening framing device.
Introduction: The Role of Setting in Storytelling
Every year at the Oscars, an Academy Award is given to the best costume designer, the best in visual effects, and the best in sound editing and sound mixing. All of these individual elements work in harmony to create the setting of a motion picture — a setting that the audience will remember, one so remarkable that it enhances the plot itself. Setting is an extremely important facet in any story — whether a book, a movie, or a television show — as it helps the audience imagine they are there, walking alongside the characters on screen or through the pages of a novel. Settings are also important in propelling individual characters through the plot: the setting helps mold their personalities and shapes their actions and reactions to certain situations. The idea that settings aid in shaping the main characters of a story is illuminated in Into the Wild and Sex and the City, where characters are defined by their settings in a variety of ways.
Carrie Bradshaw and the Urban Environment of New York City
Settings serve as the backdrop to a character both literally and figuratively. Figuratively speaking, setting is the environment in which a character is immersed — the environment that characters interact with on a daily basis — and these interactions are what help shape and define them. In Sex and the City, for instance, main character Carrie Bradshaw frequently finds herself in situations that could only arise in New York City. In this particular cosmopolitan environment, cabs are hard to find, gossip is rampant and cutting, and people are diverse and unconventional, among many other details. Importantly, when all these particular elements work together, they confront Carrie with distinct challenges.
In one pivotal storyline, Carrie is asked to pose in a magazine wearing different wedding dresses, as the famously single Bradshaw is now engaged to be married. When she is left groom-less at the altar, the news spreads rapidly through New York, and Carrie copes by dyeing her hair and hiring an assistant to help her move back into her old apartment and reorganize her life and closet. The harsh, gossip-fueled nature of New York forces Carrie onto the defensive — a reaction that would be unlikely in a quiet rural setting. This backdrop and Carrie's interaction with it shape her personality: she is humbled and humiliated, yet strong enough to deal with her circumstances and move forward. As a woman living in New York, Bradshaw is able to take charge of her life and reclaim what is hers. She is a successful author who is secure enough in herself to move past a failed relationship. The film, largely through the vehicle of Carrie Bradshaw, successfully depicts the "spirit of female solidarity" and the acceptance of being a "single urban woman" (Wisniewski).
Conclusion: Settings as Mirrors of Character and Society
Sex and the City and Into the Wild offer very different stories to the audience, but at their core, both involve characters shaped by their environment — characters who push the limits set on them by circumstance, whether that means being a woman navigating New York City or being the college-educated son of an upper-class suburban family venturing into the wilderness. The settings that these characters immerse themselves in force them to confront difficult situations, help them grow as individuals, and illuminate larger issues in society. Setting in these works facilitates both character development and plot progression. By using these two films as a microcosm for how important setting truly is, we understand as audience members why Academy Awards are given to those who contribute so meaningfully to its creation.
Works Cited
Hiott, Taylor. "Into the Wild — Critical Review of the Novel About the Journey of Christopher McCandless." Associated Content. Yahoo!, 26 May 2009. Web. 11 Aug. 2011.
Wisniewski, Chris. "Sex and the City." Reverse Shot. Web. 11 Aug. 2011.
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