Setting

Physical setting

The short story “The Sin Bin or Lucy’s Heart” by Lucy Cross takes place at a high school in Cardiff, United Kingdom. 

At one point, Lucy mentions she will move to London and live there, which appears to be her dream: “The heart that I’m drawing looks like a futuristic city full of tunnels for people to slide around in. In the future, I’m going to live in London and travel on the underground.” (p. 34, ll. 4-7). This suggests that Lucy is unhappy with her present conditions, and sees London as an ideal place, in which she can be happy. 

The time setting of the story appears to be contemporary. The textbook Lucy copies from “smells of ancient air from the 1950s” (p. 33, l. 3). However, there is no reference to modern technology, such as ...