Setting

Physical setting

The short story “Child of God” by Genevieve Abravanel is set in the county of Lancaster, in the United States. The story specifically mentions the town of Strasburg in Lancaster, which is where the accident takes place: 

The way home went through Strasburg, those back roads where you sometimes get stuck behind a buggy. Winding, hilly. Some of them like a rollercoaster and cars just come out of nowhere, their beams sweeping like sudden ghosts. Not good for a drunk adulteress, not safe at all.

The story also has a relatively specific time setting. The narrator mentions that the accident takes place “on a weekday” and that it was “Not late, but getting there. Eight? Nine?”. She also reveals that her friends Bill and Petra are “getting married in October” and that their wedding is a month away, which means that the story takes place in September. 

When she later visits Amos’s family, the narrator describes the house they live in: “A small house, neat and made of white clapboard. Everything was orderly. In the living room there were benches like in church. Someone had gathered wildflowers, and they sat in a jar on the mantel”. Overall, the house suggests the owners live a mod...