When we remember an event from our past, isn't it true that much of what we remember is a description of that event based on how it made to feel? That event had an effect on how we felt at the time, and what we describe when we remember that event is the feeling, idea, or sensation we experienced as a result of the event. Ultimately, the effect of what happened is what we think is important to us. However, think for a moment about any similar event in your life. Is it possible to accurately describe that event without including details about where and when it occurred? Probably not, since much of what we rely on for our experience, in and out of the moment, is our physiological and psychological state at that specific moment. Furthermore, since humans are so dependent on sensory stimuli, how can you say that the environment doesn't play a role in influencing how we feel about an event? For similar reasons, playwrights have relied on the settings of their plays to help convey specific ideas for as long as theater has existed. Thornton Wilder's Our Town and Athol Fugard's Master Harold… and the Boys are plays that could not be more different in the themes they address, but which address comparable techniques in the settings and effects of each. While Fugard's work is a scathing and hopeless depiction of apartheid South Africa's influence on men's personal relationships, Wilder's work contains a hopeful exhortation to live life in a way that maximizes involvement , commitment and happiness. Despite these different themes, each playwright, through the construction of his work, makes deliberate use of setting to reinforce the respective ideas of each work. Wilder achieves this primarily through deliberate construction... in the middle of the card... and walks out into the rain before the show ends. This technique is meant to represent that the problems discovered between the three in the tea room will continue in a seemingly routine manner unless something is done. In each play, the respective playwrights used the setting to effectively reinforce certain ideas conveyed by the work. While Wilder achieves this through a deliberately constructed artificial world full of semblances of life – a pantomime of reality – Fugard reinforces the strong emotions and deeply rooted fears of his characters as much through the setting as through their interactions in the interior of the setting itself. In a world where we rely on the memory of our past through sensory stimuli and our metaphysical reactions to it, both works make effective use of setting to more effectively convey the ideas presented in each..