Setting

Published in 2013, the short story “Sea Story” by A. S. Byatt is set in the contemporary UK. The action spans over Harold’s life, but the main events happen in his youth.…

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Physical setting

The physical setting is comprised of several elements. Part of the action takes place “in Filey, on the east Yorkshire coast” (ll. 2-3), part at Oxford, and part in the sea. Each of these physical places is described in vivid details by the author. Filey is contrasted with Oxford because the small town is located next to the sea while the university town is located inland:

…a fishing town with a perfect sweep of pale golden beach, crumbling grassy cliffs, and the unique Filey Brigg, a mixture of many rocks, beginning at Carr Naze, and stretching out in a long peninsula into the North Sea, full of rock pools and rivulets, harsh and tempting at once. (ll. 3-6)

In Oxford the stone colleges, the perfectly …

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Social setting

The social setting explores issue related to relationships and attitudes toward nature.

Though Harold’s interactions with Laura, the author explores unrequited love. Harold falls in love with the girl but never has the courage to act on his feelings while she is present. Laura, on the other hand, is probably not in love with Harold, because she gives him a fake address and email contact. There is little evidence that they talk to each other very much during the course of the story, and Laura is consequently surprised that Harold apparently wants to keep in touch with her.

The story also focuses on attitudes toward the sea as a symbol of nature. The fishermen in Harold’s town and even his own family fear and respect the sea; they are born with the sea in their heart: “His father was an oceanographer, the son of an oceanographer who studied the deep currents of the North Sea. His mother taught English at a high school and wrote fierce little poem…