Setting

The short story “England versus England” by Doris Lessing is set in the UK, after World War II, most likely in the late 50s or early 60s.

Physical setting

The main physical setting is the protagonist’s miner’s village which is close to Doncaster, which is situated in South Yorkshire in a coal mining area. The village where Charlie comes from is described from his perspective, in a gloomy atmosphere:

There were two thousand houses, exactly alike, with identical patches of carefully tended front garden, and busy back yards. Nearly every house had a television aerial. From every chimney poured black smoke. At the bus stop Charlie turned to look back at the village, now a low hollow of black, streaked and spattered with sullen wet lights. (p. 75, ll. 3-8)

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Social setting

The social setting is much more important in the short story because one of its main themes is social division. Consequently, the social setting shows the contrast between the rural, miners’ village society, in which people are mostly uneducated and belong to the working-class, and the urban, intellectual society of Oxford, where most students belong to the middle class. Those from the working class are cynical and ironic about the middle class, such as the friends of Charlie’s father:

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