Setting

In what follows, you can read a presentation of the setting of the short story “Mule Killers” by Lydia Peelle.

Time setting

The time setting is interesting to analyze, as the story explores two moments: the moment of the present-day narration and a story that took place in the past, over 30 years ago. The short story was published in 2004, but it is likely that the “present-day” events are meant to take place a few decades ago.

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Physical setting

The main physical setting is the narrator’s grandfather’s farm, which was situated somewhere near Nashville, Tennessee: “In the spring of that year, in the afternoon of one rain-brightened day, my father’s father goes to Nashville and buys two International Harvester tractors for eighteen hundred dollars, cash” (ll. 4-6). Nashville is the place where the grandfather buys the tractors, where he takes his injured worker to the hospital, and also the place where the narrator was conceived.

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Social setting

The social setting focuses on two important aspects: the changes brought about by modernization in agriculture and the relationship between father and son.

On the one hand, the first sign of modernization is selling the mules from the farm and replacing them with tractors. As tractors are faster and more efficient, the work on the farm becomes easier, and the farm becomes more competitive. However, modernization also brings by fear and danger: tractors almost kill one of the farmer’s workers and make him afraid of what the future has in store.

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