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What are the definitions of the four functions of setting in literature?
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In a Nutshell: (1) Observations of the physical surroundings and atmosphere. The novel begins with Nick Carraway, the narrator, expressing his first impressions of the West Egg and East Egg communities on Long Island. He says that he has just moved into a "big new house" in West Egg only about two hundred yards from the shore. This is important because it sets up Nick's relationship to Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan and Jordan Baker. Daisy is from East Egg and Tom is from West Egg which means that they are neighbors and will eventually meet. The location of each character's home also gives an indication of their social status since most of the wealthy people in Fitzgerald'
Referential Function - This gives the illusion of reality. This function is considered direct telling.
Verisimilitude Function - This function has mimetic qualities—that is, imitating the real world with spatial markers which can include geographical/topological references and place names. An example is Twain's, Huckleberry Finn.
Symbolic Function (sometimes called indirect showing) - The creation and building up of context and atmosphere. This function generally has a didactic message; that is, the setting conveys a message. An example would be Dickens' Bleak House.
Analogical Function - This function establishes a parallel between setting and character. An example here would be Eudora Welty's, Death of a Traveling Salesman.
Unbelievably, The Great Gatsby employs all the above functions!
The setting of a story—more accurately called the mise-en-scene (literally “to take in the scene”)—includes not only the physical space in which the characters develop and “tell” the story, but also the historical...
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period, the year, the time of year, the time of day, the weather, the ambience, the country, the rural orpastoral immediate scene, indoor or outdoors, the level of affluence, etc—every part of the physical universe in which the story unfolds. The “referential function” is served when the author sets the story inside known historical/political events by “referring” to an incident or setting recognizable to the reader (the storming of the Bastille, for example). The “verisimilitude function” is served when the author supplies details of the physical surroundings that give the reader a mental “picture” of the setting—cobblestone streets, gray, dingy walls of stone, etc. The "symbolic function" is served when the author uses such figures of speech as synechdoche, personification, etc. to convey the scene as a symbolic representation of abstract conditions (a "sunless day”). Close related but more abstract is the "analogical function," which is conveyed when the author uses the device called “paysage moralise”, the depiction of the scene as representing the mental or spiritual state of the character (in Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky describes Raskalnikov’s room as low-ceilinged, cracked, decrepit, etc. as a an analog to Raskalnikov’s spiritual state.)