Setting

The setting of the story is in the land of Alagalsia and beyond. The reader is provided with a map at the beginning, and this is helpful in charting the course of Eragon, Brom, Saphira, and Murtagh. Geography plays a large part in the story since the characters hike through mountains, ford great rivers, and cross the dry and sweltering desert. Decisive moments occur in the story when Eragon must decide to leave the lands he has always known. First, he leaves his farm and Carvahall, the village where he grew up. Then he, Murtagh, and Saphira leave Alagalsia when they cross the Hadarac Desert for the Beor Mountains.

The map is very important to the reading of this story. It keeps the reader in touch with where the characters are going and where they have been. It is disorientation and unfamiliarity shared by reader and characters alike...