Setting
Darkness At Noon is an allegory set in the USSR (not named) during the 1938 purges, as Stalin consolidated his dictatorship by eliminating potential rivals within the Communist Party, the military, and the professions. None of this is identified explicitly in the book. Most of the novel occurs within an unnamed prison and in the recollections of the main character Rubashov.
Koestler drew on his experience of being imprisoned by Francisco Franco's officials during the Spanish Civil War, which he described in his memoir Dialog with Death. He was kept in solitary confinement and expected to be executed. He was permitted to walk in the courtyard in the company of other prisoners. While not beaten, he believed that other prisoners were.
Read more about this topic: Darkness At Noon
Famous quotes containing the word setting:
“Only in the problem play is there any real drama, because drama is no mere setting up of the camera to nature: it is the presentation in parable of the conflict between Man’s will and his environment: in a word, of problem.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“The world is ... the natural setting of, and field for, all my thoughts and all my explicit perceptions. Truth does not “inhabit” only “the inner man,” or more accurately, there is no inner man, man is in the world, and only in the world does he know himself.”
—Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1907–1961)
“Love is at the root of all healthy discipline. The desire to be loved is a powerful motivation for children to behave in ways that give their parents pleasure rather than displeasure. it may even be our own long-ago fear of losing our parents’ love that now sometimes makes us uneasy about setting and maintaining limits. We’re afraid we’ll lose the love of our children when we don’t let them have their way.”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)