Setting

Physical setting

The short story “Kiss” by Elizabeth Baines is mainly set in the London Tube, the place where the characters’ lives come together. The story is probably meant to be read as a contemporary story, suggested by the characters’ clothes and by the fact that suicide bombers are a fairly recent phenomenon. Also, note the reference to people carrying laptops (l. 93). 

The main events take place over the course of a few minutes, when the young man with the backpack enters the tube station and presses the detonator in his hand. 

However, the story goes back in time to describe several past situations. It starts by describing events from a few minutes before and then moves on to the night before. The night before, the couple met in “a south London garden” (ll. 20-21), while the man with the backpack was in an upstairs flat “over the low- and high-rise council estates, the wide ebbing river and the traffic run of Euston” (ll. 27-28). The two settings are in contrast but reflect the characters’ experiences and ...