Setting

The poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson is set in a location the speaker refers to as “the valley of Death”. As the poem is inspired by real events, we know that the exact time setting of the poem is the 25th of October 1854 and the location is near Balaclava in the then Russian Empire, now the Republic of Crimea. 

The fact that the speaker refers to the location as “the valley of Death” creates an ominous atmosphere from the very first stanza:

Into the valley of Death

 Rode the six hundred. (ll. 7-8)

The speaker also presents the atmosphere by showing the sounds around the soldiers: 

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them,

Volleyed and thundered; (ll. 18-21)

This description of the thunder...