Instruction
For this creative assignment, I want you to think about a time in your life when you were living two lives--one life shaped by one physical setting and the other life shaped by a completely different place--and write a 2-page story that illustrates the different “you”s living in these different places.
You can choose to return to a story from a previous module or tell a new story. It’s up to you, but be certain to consider the settings as what forced you to live two different lives for that moment in time. If you can, you may use the story, like Achebe did, to make a comment about something larger, like the role of tradition in our lives.
Understanding how setting can shape characters and plot in stories helps us understand how environment can shape everyone's lives. Of course, in the old nature versus nurture debate, it’s impossible to blame who we are completely on one or the other, but understanding setting is a good way of understanding the power of environmental influences on people.