According to Kirszner & Mandell (6th edition), the setting of a work of fiction establishes its historical, geographical, and physical context. In this short story, the setting is in a Malay village where science and technology was about to be introduced to the people. It also showed the belief of people in which they still hold to believe in superstitious and spirit of the unseen. Other than that, the setting also revealed the lifestyle of the people in Malay Village at that time, such as their food and their activities.
Firstly, the time setting of the short story is between 1980’s and 1990’s. It is when science and technology was just started to influence the life of Malaysian society towards progression. The Malay village was pictured to be unavailable of the modernism because of the remoteness but the people were aware of the importance of it. In page 98, line 7, “Timah! Nuar! That’s enough. Stop playing now. Go and read your books!” shows that the villagers know the importance of education in which contribute to the progress of science and technology to help improve their life.
Secondly, the village people still have belief in traditional method to cure diseases. They come for help and show appreciation by giving money and food even though the success has not yet proven. In page 95, Cikgu Ali gave some money to Pak Seman even though he still did not know whether the incantation water is effective for his son or not, and even he himself did not believe in Pak Seman in the first place.
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