Setting (Scottish Highers English): Revision Notes
Setting
The story unfolds in a small, isolated rural village, most likely situated on an island. This community operates according to established traditions and patterns of behaviour. Smith uses a first-person plural narrator who speaks as "we", which creates a sense of collective identity within this tight-knit but insular society. The villagers' lives revolve around familiar activities: farming, cutting peat, visiting the local shop, and attending church services. These routines determine what the community considers normal and acceptable.
The use of a first-person plural narrator ("we") is significant because it creates a collective voice that emphasizes the community's shared perspective and values. This narrative choice makes the reader experience the village's conformist mentality from within, rather than observing it from outside.
The hermit's physical position
The hermit makes a deliberate choice about where to position himself in relation to the community. He does not enter the village itself but instead settles "to the outskirts of our village". This creates an immediate physical separation that mirrors deeper social and emotional divisions.
His dwelling, a tin hut, stands "near the road", which means the villagers can see him even though he maintains his distance. Smith positions the hermit in a way that makes him impossible to ignore, despite his avoidance of all human contact. He exists in a liminal space—neither fully part of the community nor completely removed from it. This creates tension because the villagers cannot pretend he does not exist.
Liminal space refers to a threshold or in-between place. The hermit occupies a position that is neither inside nor outside the community—he is visible and present, yet refuses participation. This ambiguous positioning is central to the story's tension, as it denies the villagers the comfort of either full inclusion or complete separation.
The surrounding landscape
The natural environment serves an important function in reinforcing themes of isolation and freedom. The hermit travels "across the moors" and fishes from rocks "usually in an isolated place where no one was likely to talk to him". These open, empty spaces provide him with the solitude he seeks.
Smith establishes a clear contrast between two types of space. The moors represent freedom, privacy, and escape from scrutiny. The village, by comparison, represents watchfulness, routine, and social expectation. Nature becomes a refuge for the hermit, while the village operates as a place of pressure and conformity. The landscape is not simply background detail but actively shapes how characters can behave.
Symbolic Contrast in Setting
Smith creates a binary opposition between two types of space:
- The moors: freedom, solitude, natural world, escape from judgment
- The village: constraint, community, social world, constant surveillance
This geographical contrast reflects the story's thematic exploration of individual freedom versus social conformity.
Time and the hermit's constant presence
Smith emphasises the temporal dimension of the setting. The narrator reflects:
"in the long winter nights, in the long summer days, we knew that he was there."
This quotation reveals that the hermit's presence is unrelenting. His existence continues across changing seasons, making him an inescapable part of village consciousness. The repetition of "long" suggests how his presence weighs on the community's collective mind.
Even though the hermit takes no hostile action, his mere existence across time becomes a psychological burden. The villagers cannot forget about him because he remains visible and present throughout the year. Time does not diminish his impact—it intensifies it.
The hermit's threat is not physical but psychological. He takes no aggressive action, yet his mere presence—his visible choice to live differently—creates discomfort in the community. This reveals that the village feels threatened not by what the hermit does, but by what he represents: an alternative to their way of life.
Social restrictions in the village
The village operates as a socially restrictive environment rather than a physically harsh one. Smith includes the detail that "there was no drink to be had in the village", indicating the absence of a pub or similar social space. Community life centres on shared routines rather than pleasure or individual choice.
The narrator mentions the villagers' desire to "lead quiet lives". This phrase suggests an atmosphere where questioning established norms or displaying difference is actively discouraged. The repetition of "quiet" implies suppression—not just of noise, but of deviation from accepted behaviour. The setting becomes oppressive not through physical hardship but through social expectation and limited opportunity for individual expression.
The Nature of Oppression
Smith shows that oppression does not always take the form of physical hardship or overt cruelty. In this village, control operates through:
- Social pressure and expectations
- Limited opportunities for individual expression
- Enforcement of conformity through collective observation
- Suppression of difference through community disapproval
This subtle form of control can be as powerful as more obvious forms of restriction.
Changes after the hermit's departure
Once the hermit leaves, the setting undergoes a subtle shift in mood rather than physical appearance. The narrator observes:
"it was as if a great weight had been lifted from the shoulders of the villagers."
This metaphor reveals how the hermit's presence created psychological pressure. His departure brings emotional relief even though nothing visible has changed yet.
The villagers then take deliberate action to erase physical traces of his existence. They destroy the tin hut and express hope that "the grass will grow over it completely". This shows their desire to restore the setting to one of complete conformity. By removing all evidence of the hermit's presence, they attempt to return the landscape to its previous state—one without visible difference or challenge to their way of life.
The villagers' actions after the hermit's departure are revealing. They don't simply ignore the abandoned hut—they actively destroy it and hope nature will erase all traces. This demonstrates their need not just to remove difference, but to deny it ever existed. The desire for grass to grow over the site suggests a wish to rewrite history and restore the illusion of a community without dissent or alternative perspectives.
The setting as an active force
Smith uses setting not as passive background but as an active element that shapes meaning. The contrast between the confined social space of the village and the open, solitary spaces of the moors reinforces the story's central tensions.
The village represents conformity, community surveillance, and rejection of difference. The moors represent independence, freedom, and escape from social pressure. The hermit's position on the outskirts places him between these two forces, visible to the village but oriented towards the freedom of the natural landscape.
Through setting, Smith explores broader themes: the conflict between conformity and independence, the tension between community belonging and isolation, and the question of whether difference can be accepted or must be rejected. The physical geography becomes inseparable from the story's examination of how communities respond to those who choose to live differently.
Key Points to Remember:
- The village is small, isolated, and traditional, operating according to established patterns and discouraging difference
- The hermit positions himself "to the outskirts of our village" and "near the road"—visible but separate, creating inescapable tension
- The moors represent freedom and solitude, contrasting with the village's watchful, confined social space
- Time emphasises the hermit's constant presence: "in the long winter nights, in the long summer days, we knew that he was there"
- After his departure, villagers experience relief and destroy the tin hut, hoping "the grass will grow over it completely" to erase all traces of difference
- Setting functions as an active force that shapes character behaviour and reinforces thematic conflicts between conformity and independence