Seventeen: Analysis of Setting
"Seventeen: Analysis of Setting" explores the backdrop of Booth Tarkington's novel, which is set in an unnamed midwestern city that serves as a representation of nostalgia for early 20th-century American small towns. This city, based on Tarkington's hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana, features walkable neighborhoods where characters navigate their environment primarily on foot or via streetcars, with infrequent references to automobiles. The setting reflects a time when family-owned businesses, like drugstores, acted as social hubs for adolescents, who are depicted as being keenly aware of social decorum and fashion. The narrative also highlights the racial divisions within the city, showcasing the experiences of African American characters who, despite their modest lifestyles, are portrayed in a context that hints at historical inequalities. The "avynoo," an allusion to Indiana Avenue in Indianapolis, symbolizes the area where the African American community resides, contrasting sharply with the predominantly white middle-class neighborhoods of the Baxter family. The novel presents a tranquil yet segregated social landscape, where the lack of racial tension belies deeper societal issues of the time. Overall, the setting plays a crucial role in framing the characters' experiences and the cultural dynamics of the era.
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Subject Terms
Seventeen: Analysis of Setting
First published: 1916
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Comic realism
Time of work: Early twentieth century
Places Discussed
Midland city
Midland city. Unnamed midwestern city that provides the novel neighborhood setting; Booth Tarkington calls it simply a “middle-sized midland city.” However, Tarkington based it on Indianapolis, Indiana, his birthplace and hometown. (Readers will note that, in the novel’s first paragraph, its protagonist, William “Willie” Baxter, appears at the corner of Washington Street and Central Avenue. Washington Street was and is a major thoroughfare of Indianapolis, running east to west through the city and into surrounding counties.)
Tarkington’s city serves as an icon of nostalgia, a kind of literary museum of the way things once were, culturally and morally, in small cities and villages across America. Readers of the twenty-first century will perhaps be surprised to note some of the physical features of the city: one can easily walk from its center to its residential neighborhoods. Automobiles are mentioned but seldom seen, and are not at all something that every family has. The story’s characters move from one place to another on foot or on the trolley. One scene, near the middle of the novel, is staged on a “streetcar.” Travel outside the city is by train (one of the last scenes in the novel takes place in the city’s railway station).
The novel’s first scene is set in an old-fashioned drugstore. Such family-owned businesses served as popular meeting places for young people. The adolescents in Seventeen are remarkably conscious of decorum and proper dress. Even a stroll down the streets of the residential areas calls for suits and hats for the teenage boys, and dresses, elegant shoes, and hats for the girls.
The novel’s “midland city” is racially divided. It is plain that African American characters are only a generation or two removed from slavery; their speech patterns and customs seem southern rather than midwestern. Moreover, their relationship to such families as the Baxters is ambiguous. The African American Genesis, for example, is regularly employed by the Baxters and other neighborhood families as a handyman and waiter. He is always on call, and Tarkington depicts him as grateful to earn what he can to support a very modest lifestyle.
Avynoo
Avynoo. African American neighborhood in the unnamed city—where all the “colored” people live, as one of the novel’s African American characters puts it. Again, this fictional section of Seventeen’s nameless city has its origin in fact. The “avynoo” is a transparent allusion to Indianapolis’s Indiana Avenue, which has been known for many years as “the avenue,” the heart of the city’s African American culture.
While the neighborhood where the Baxter family and their friends live is white middle-class America, the avynoo refers to urban American ghettos. The tranquil milieu of Seventeen, however, does not belie any racial tension; neither the novel’s whites nor its African Americans seem to regret that the races are sharply segregated in their neighborhoods and opportunities.
Bibliography
Fennimore, Keith J. Booth Tarkington. New York: Twayne, 1974. A fine basic study of Tarkington and his work, although it lacks a sustained study of Seventeen. The author distinguishes Seventeen as a “juvenile” work, different from Tarkington’s other novels.
Russo, Dorothy R., et al. “Additions to the Tarkington Bibliography.” Princeton University Library Chronicle 15 (Winter, 1955): 89-94. An update of the following entry.
Russo, Dorothy R., and Thelma L. Sullivan. A Bibliography of Booth Tarkington. Indianapolis: Indianapolis Historical Society, Lakeside Press, 1949. The book remains useful for anyone seriously interested in Tarkington, especially in the receptions his books received in the popular press.
Scott, John D. “Tarkington and the 1920’s.” American Scholar 26 (Spring, 1957): 181-194. Focuses on the social criticism in Tarkington’s work.
Woodress, James. Booth Tarkington: Gentleman from Indiana. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1955. Still one of the most thorough critical biographies of Tarkington, with an emphasis on chronological biography rather than on literary analysis.