Setting

Published in 1936, the short story “The Vigilante” by John Steinbeck takes place in an American town. Given that it is believed the story was inspired by real events, we can assume the time setting was meant to be the early 1930s.

In November 1933, two African-American men accused of killing and mutilating a white woman were lynched in San Jose, California. An important hint that suggests the story is based on these events is the fact that the action in the narrative takes place during the cold season: “wife was sitting by the open gas oven warming herself” (p. 5, l. 1).

Physical setting

The events span over one night and the physical setting includes places like the park, the bar, the streets, and Mike’s house.

The park and the streets are often described using the contrast between light and dark, symbolic of the contrast between reason and instinct: “But now everything was dead, everything unreal; the dark mob was made up of stiff lay-figures. In the flamelight the faces were as expressionless as wood.” (p. 1, ll. 41-42);

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Social setting

In the story, a mob of white people lynches an African-American man accused of a crime (maybe a murder). At the time, racism was still very powerful in the US, and segregation was enforced on a large scale (African-Americans and white people lived in separate residential areas, went to different schools, etc.) Mike’s perspective on the lynching being something ordinary suggests that African-Americans were often dehumanized in the eyes of white people:

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