Let's talk about lunch for just a minute. Food is something that all humans need to survive. When people talk about lunch with their friends or family, one question always comes up: where will they have dinner? Literature is no different. Without a setting or place for the story to take place, there is no story. Lunch for people is the same; they have to have somewhere to go. There are many elements that allow the reader to make a connection, using their own feelings and beliefs, with the story. A writer must have a setup to make any of these key components work. The setting can be seen as the foundation or concrete slab on which the story is built. Without a solid foundation; the story would fall apart if any weight was added to it. Key elements such as symbolism, style, and themes must blend with the setting to help provide a visual image for the reader. This applies to "The House on Mango Street", "The Lottery" and "A&P". Cisneros, Jackson, and Updike understand the importance of setting in a story. It would be nearly impossible for the reader to create a mental image of what is happening in the stories without understanding where it is happening. In “The House on Mango Street,” Cisneros heightens the reader's ability to create a mental image by adding enormous descriptive detail. “The laundromat downstairs had been boarded up because it had been robbed two days earlier and the owner had painted WE'RE OPEN on the wood so as not to lose business” (Roberts 48). The setting provided by Cisneros allows us to make inferences about the main character's neighborhood. This sets the stage for the main theme of the story. The parents of the child in the story always say that they will have a real home...... middle of paper......if a person thinks of a warm and sunny meadow, he calms down and forgets some of his inner worries . When a person thinks of a scorched wasteland, he becomes nervous and a feeling of fear may come over him. The setting is the necessary foundation before the story can be built. It's what shapes the characters, actions, and dialogue in the story. A story cannot be fully developed without a setting and these stories have really demonstrated the importance of setting. “The House on Mango Street” showed how a setting can help show the true plot of a story. “The Lottery” highlighted the setting's ability to give the reader a kind of foreshadowing that cannot be acquired in any other way. Finally, “A&P”, provides us with an example of how setting can be used to show a character's true feelings. The setting influences all parts of a story with great importance.