The Cider House Rules takes place over a large sweep of time. Its main action is set from the 1930s through to the 1950s; it also looks backwards to the early 1900s, in a chapter on Dr. Larch’s early life. This is a timespan that encompasses two world wars, as well as periods of both national prosperity and depression. At the same time, most of the novel is set in rural Maine, at a remove from much of this upheaval. Dr. Larch has kept his orphanage deliberately separate from the world so that it can be a place of routine and predictability; even the Ocean’s View orchard, which to Homer is cosmopolitan, is quiet and set in its rhythms. When the outside world intrudes on these sealed-off smaller worlds, it is especially dramatic and startling.

This is seen in Wally Worthington’s experience as a fighter pilot during World War II. Wally is a conventional character with romantic ideas about joining the army and becoming a war hero. He has adventures in the war and comports himself bravely. But his experiences are also often strange and embarrassing to him, as when he is rescued by Burmese peasants and disguised as a woman to escape detection by the Japanese, a wartime enemy.