The Setting

The Lost King is set on the fictional Wanoom Penisnsula in Australia, and around 'Whalers Cove', where the schools camp is set up.

When the four main characters are sent on a Navigation Activity into the immense and unruly forest of the Wanoom Peninsula, they become disorientated and have no idea where they are. The sheer size of the forest and the desolation the feel when they are captured by it is almost beyond what they can handle.

I believe that Scot Gardner has written about the setting of this book in this approach because he wanted to use the setting as a massive personification, and make it seem as if it is almost holding them inside it and not letting them out. This is shown in Chapter 11, when Peter states


- 'At that moment, I felt cursed. If we'd been prisoners on the run, this would have been the perfect place to hide. The ferns were so thick above us, we would have been safe from gunfire.'

In Chapter 12, he also says-

'The scratching branches, the grasses that tore at my clothes, the march flies- They all took a piece of me. Maybe that was what Pearson meant when he called this place 'hungry country'.


Gardner also uses the surroundings of the characters as a way of reflecting the stae of their emotions.

In Chapter 2, the main theme is the amount of pain and tiredness that everyone is going through but also the hopefulness felt when the 'tempting rumble of the beach' is heard.

The setting plays a major part in the plot, almost as large as the main characters, and is obviously one of the authors most thought out element of the book.