| The setting plays major role in prose fiction. The | | | | writers used the local color of America. For |
| dialect spoken, the customs observed, the dress | | | | instance, the various parts of America just as the |
| code prevalent, and the way of living all can be | | | | Mississippi region was used by Mark Twain, the |
| peculiar to a particular region. This sort of setting | | | | south by George Washington Cable, the Midwest |
| is called a local color of the area or region. You | | | | by E. W. Howe, the West by Bret Harte, and |
| must have come across such peculiarity of an | | | | New England by Mary Wilkins Freeman and the |
| area while reading a prose or a novel. | | | | Sarah Orne Jewett. |
| Such beautiful local color called "Wessex" | | | | The writing concerned with the local colour |
| (present-day Dorset) is painted by Thomas Hardy | | | | focuses mainly on the particularity of the area. It |
| in his novels. If you read a wide range of his | | | | is basically about the comic or sentimental |
| novels, the Wessex will emerge in front of your | | | | representation of the surface distinctiveness of a |
| mind's eye - so beautiful, so vivid! Rudyard Kipling's | | | | region. It does not represent the deep, complex |
| India also shares the same local color. R. K. | | | | and the generalized characteristics and problems |
| Narayan beautifully portrays the imaginary village | | | | of the region. |
| of "Malgudi" - set somewhere in South India - in | | | | It is the powerful representation of the local color |
| his novels. | | | | in the novels, the Wessex in Hardy's novels, and |
| The representation of the local shade or color | | | | the Malgudi in R. K. Narayan's novels have become |
| continues emerging in the writings of several | | | | immortal in the history of literature! |
| writers. After the Civil War, many American | | | | |