Setting In King Arthur

In The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, Howard Pyle uses setting to foreshadow future events. Pyle uses setting in that way in the marriage of King Arthur and Lady Guinevere, and later in the story of Vivien and Merlin.

Pyle draws a happy setting before the wedding of King Arthur and Lady Guinevere. Pyle writes, “A bird might sing here and another there, a short song in memory of springtime, when all the air was tempered with warmth, and yet the leaves were everywhere turning brown and red and gold.” Pyle foreshadows a happy wedding by using words like “warmth,” “birds singing,” and the beautiful golden color of fall.

Pyle draws a dark setting at the start of the story of Merlin and Vivien. Pyle writes, “They reached the confines of a very dark and dismal forest. And there they beheld before them trees so thickly interwoven together that the eyes could not see anything at all of the sky because of the thickness of the foliage.” Pyle uses words like “dark” and “dismal” to foreshadow that something bad is going to happen. Then later, Vivien puts Merlin in an evil deep sleep.

In The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, Pyle uses setting to foreshadow good or bad events. In the story of Arthur and Guinevere’s wedding, Pyle foreshadows a happy event, but in the story of Merlin and Vivien, Pyle foreshadows a dark and evil end.