Post 7:

I believe so far that this story represents the best example of "setting"  that we've read thus far.  I can completely understand how someone wants to escape the entrapment of their upbringing.  Once out of your initial safe zone you find yourself immersed in the culture of wherever you are.  In Z.Z. Packers story of "Geese" setting was the main character of the story.  Dina went to a foreign land for monetary reasons but found a different culture that once she quit her job she immersed herself in.  Once there she realized that the setting that she was used to might not be that bad after all. 

It's important for all of us to realize that the "setting" that we live our lives in might be drastically different than those around us.  Settings can overlap in real life whereas authors have to put them into words.  Every day as we walk around campus our setting morphs around our fellow man.  Setting isn't as simple as "He grew up in a simple post civil war town." Setting is of course where your story takes place but once you get past that you get into each characters interpretation of their surrounding and it gives the story "like an onion"... layers.. everyone brings into a story their own setting that is unique to them.