Setting

Physical setting

The events described in the short story “Hostage” by Andrew Vachss take place in Brooklyn, New York (p. 156, l. 5). Mark Weston holds his mother hostage on the top floor of a “three-family frame building in a middle-class section of Brooklyn.” (p. 156, ll. 4-5) The description of the neighborhood also shows Mark’s modest financial status. 

The narrative also briefly presents Walker’s past as a sniper in Vietnam. Walker calls Vietnam “the killing floor in South-East Asia” (p. 157, ll. 6-7), which hints at the violence of the war and its traumatic effect on those who fought in it. 

Another part of the physical setting is the psychiatrist’s office, which Walker breaks into to read his file and diagnosis: “The shrink’s office was in Manhattan. The locks were a joke” (p. 157, ll. 22-23). Ma...