Crow Lake Essay In Crow Lake, Mary Lawson depicts a family that experiences great tragedy when Mr. and Mrs. Morrison are killed in a car accident. This tragedy changes the lifestyle of seven-year-old protagonist Kate Morrison and her siblings Matt, Luke and Bo. The settings are very important in this novel. Although the number of parameters is limited, the ones used are very effective. Without effective use of the themes in this novel, the reader would not have been able to connect with the characters and feel sympathy. Lawson uses an exceptionally high degree of literary devices to develop each character in this novel. The decor element is used to create a defined atmosphere and, therefore, helps to create a desired ambiance. In Kate's childhood, she and Matt regularly visited the ponds. . They used to go "through the woods with their lush growth of poison ivy, along the railroad tracks, past the dusty lines of boxcars to receive their loads of sugar beets, up the steep sandy road to 'to the ponds themselves' (Lawson 4). Lawson used powerful imagery to further describe the ponds. The pond settings are a central part of the story. The ponds are a symbol of Matt and Kate's close relationship. They had spent “hundreds of hours” there (Lawson 15). The ponds were like a home to her. In the prologue, Kate stated that “there is no image of my childhood that I carry within me more clearly than this” (Lawson 4). The ponds also symbolize Kate's childhood. Matt and Kate were able to overcome the tragedy of their parents' deaths by visiting the ponds, but they did not survive Matt's "disloyalty." The ponds then became the scene of the crime. Kate mentions in the book, "The following September the ponds themselves were said to have been desecrated twice, as far as I was concerned, and for some years after that I did not visit them at all" (Lawson 218). Ponds are therefore of great importance at Crow Lake. The setting changed from a warm, sweet, memorable place to a Crow Lake crime scene. The theme of isolation is established and developed through the setting of Crow Lake. Set against the desert territory of northern Ontario, Crow Lake is a timid agricultural settlement that is "...connected to the outside world by a dusty road and railroad tracks" (Lawson 9).