Reading Response to Dorothy Allison's "Place"

  Going into this essay, mainly from the opening paragraph, I didn't know what I was getting into. I disagree with Allison's view on why we read but that is not important. The main thing is that I thought I had a good view on what place was and how to write it. Boy was I wrong. Allison talks about place being this other character in the story, this other manifestation that has an outreaching hand that can convince and control the reader and also the characters in the story. One example that came to light to me was Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and how the she explains the place in which the Bennet's live and how their village is this other character.
  One part I especially like well more so a line I liked was, when she was explaining how to generalize a city or a part of the country and how it can give place a very distinctive meaning. My favorite was "Central Florida is despair." I think this is great because I have plenty of friends from that area and if you ask anyone of them to describe it, they would say this. It is just an interesting thought to think about a place or place in this light. I know one too many times I have fallen under the idea the place and setting are one and the same and that a story can be told only from the perspective of a room or a simple area. My struggle is I don't describe how the place affects all my senses and this essay brought this to light to me.