The Fictional Towns of Literature

R.K. Narayan's Malgudi, Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County, and of course, L. Frank Baum's enchanting Oz. These fictional places imagined by prolific writers possess great character, and ultimately reflect the author's mindset, intention and desires. A greater understanding of each of these places is pieced together bit by bit through every engaging story written, and eventually come to represent different things in the ways that they are perceived by us, the readers. Interesting questions to perhaps ask would then be: what was the intention of the author in creating such an intricate or elaborate world (all three are depicted beautifully drawn maps) and how did people perceive such fictional towns at the time, as well as what these towns eventually came to represent.