Throughout "The Painted Door" and "A Lamp at Noon", there are many similarities shared between the stories concerning the plots, characters and their feelings and relationships between them. A decent reasoning for these similarities may be because Sinclair Ross is the author of both of the short stories and that is why they reflect each other when you compare the two stories. Furthermore, they are also written in the same point of view, and they seem to present the same common ideas, although the themes do differ when compared against each other. The plots settings and characters in both of the short stories are presented, to show many similarities and qualities that reflect each other in a noticeable way. .
The settings of both the stories are both closely related. Both take place in the 1930's during the Canadian depression on the prairies. A powerful storm is keeping both of the couples cooped up in, or near their house, however, in "The Painted Door", the storm has yet to hit them and in the other one, the story begins during a fierce sandstorm. The landscapes share similarities as well since both John and Ann (The Painted Door), and, Paul and Ellen (A Lamp at Noon) both live on farmland on the prairies. We can tell that they are located on the prairies because of the way that they describe the long flat and sometimes small hills surrounding the farmlands. One example from "the painted door" is, "the long miles of prairie landscape." There are only two main differences in the settings of each book that contradict the similarities, and those are that the stories take place during two different seasons (winter and summer). Also, since the seasons are different, the storms that isolate the characters are also. John and Ann deal with the cold winter storm, while Paul and Ellen have to work through issues during a long sand storm.
With the two couples being stuck in fierce storms, it adds to the feeling of isolation that each feels living on a farm in the middle the prairies.
