43 pages • 1-hour read
Kensuke's Kingdom
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Chapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness and mental health concerns.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Gibbons and Ghosts”
As the lights of the Peggy Sue vanish into the night, Michael feels certain that he will either be devoured by sharks or drown. The boy finds his soccer ball and uses the buoyant object to keep himself afloat. Although he calls out to Stella, there’s no sign of her, and he focuses on keeping himself alive in the hope that his parents will soon discover his absence and rescue him. He sings to try to keep his spirits up. As the night drags on, Michael’s strength fades, and he drifts into sleep even though he’s certain that he will drown. Michael dreams that the Peggy Sue returns for him, that someone shakes him, and that Stella licks his face.
Michael is startled awake by a fearful howling. He’s lying on a beach, and Stella rushes to him. After his joyful reunion with his dog, Michael becomes aware of his exhaustion and his isolation. He calls for his parents until he realizes that they can’t possibly hear him and bursts into tears. When more howling issues from the forest, Stella barks, and the boy reassures her that the noise is caused by gibbons. Michael scales a hill. Although he cannot see any sign of a ship, the beautiful view of the wooded island and the surrounding sea fills him with elation. He also takes comfort in talking to Stella, and he begins to hope once more that his parents will find them. He spends the rest of the day searching in vain for freshwater and food before going to sleep in a cave.
When Michael awakens the next morning, he discovers that someone has left two tin bowls of water, strips of raw fish, and several red bananas for him and Stella. Filled with joy and gratitude, Michael calls out to his unknown benefactor and then uses a rock to carve a message beside the bowls. “Thank you. My name is Michael. I fell off a boat. Who are you?” (38). After he finishes his meal, Michael explores the beach and finds part of a shipwreck and a piece of glass. The boy gathers leaves for kindling and uses the glass to start a fire. An orangutan emerges from the forest, stares at Michael briefly, and then disappears back into the trees. Cautiously, the boy goes into the forest to gather more kindling. When he returns to the beach, he sees a man putting out the fire.
Chapter 5 Summary: “I, Kensuke”
The man is elderly and emaciated, but he demonstrates surprising speed and vigor when he rushes toward Michael, crying, “Dameda” (42), which means “forbidden” in Japanese. To the boy’s surprise, Stella greets the man as if he is a dear friend. After determining that the boy is British, the man tells him in English that he can’t have a fire. Michael tries to explain that he’s hoping to signal to his parents, but the man doesn’t understand what he’s saying and remains adamant that fire is forbidden. He introduces himself as Kensuke. Kensuke draws a map of the island in the sand, divides it in two, and instructs the boy to remain on one side of the island.
Feeling morose, the boy retreats into his cave. His mind teems with questions, such as how he might get off the island, how long Kensuke has lived there, and why he put out the fire. Michael resolves to find water and food for himself and to build another fire. The next morning, he sees that Kensuke has left more food and water for him and Stella, and he interprets this to mean that the man will keep him alive as long as he follows Kensuke’s rules. Reluctantly, Michael resigns himself to staying on his side of the boundary Kensuke marked, but Stella crosses the line and visits Kensuke with impunity. Michael becomes more aware of his dependency on the man when his attempts to fish and find freshwater for himself meet with little to no success. The boy also fears orangutans, but he sees Kensuke interacting with them peacefully.
Michael develops a lonely routine. He spends his days watching the sea from the hilltop and his nights tormented by mosquitoes. Although he continues to hope that the Peggy Sue will return, he sees no sign of a vessel. The highlight of his and Stella’s days is their afternoon game of fetch. To shield himself from the sun, he crafts a hat out of leaves and spends much of his time swimming. One day, Kensuke leaves a rush mat and a sheet for the boy. Michael wraps himself in the bedding, “giggling with joy” at the thought of being able to sleep without mosquitoes biting him (49). The boy hurries to the boundary line and expresses his gratitude verbally and in writing. He longs to befriend and converse with the man, but he falls asleep before Kensuke arrives with his nightly food delivery. The next morning, Michael sees a ship from the hilltop.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Abunai!”
Michael shouts himself hoarse, but he realizes that no one on the supertanker will be able to hear or see him. He feels “a burning anger” towards Kensuke because the ship might have noticed him if he’d been allowed to have a fire (51). He resolves to light a beacon with the piece of glass when another ship appears and spends several days gathering kindling on Watch Hill. Michael begins to think of Kensuke as his captor, and he takes care to hide his labors from the elderly man. One day, an orangutan approaches Michael while he’s building the beacon, and the frightened boy holds still until the primate leaves.
A typhoon pummels the island for four days, confining Michael and Stella to the cave. The boy thinks of his parents and hopes that the Peggy Sue isn’t in the path of the storm. Kensuke continues to bring food and water to them every night despite the fearsome weather. The day after the storm breaks, Michael inspects his sodden pile of kindling and then tries to escape the humidity by swimming in the ocean. Kensuke hurries to the beach, tells him that it’s too dangerous to swim, and pulls him out of the water. Michael is confused and furious because he doesn’t understand why swimming is dangerous now. Feeling as though he is “drowning in [his] misery” (55), Michael abandons his visits to Watch Hill for days and lies in his cave contemplating his own mortality.
Eventually, Michael’s depression gives way to determination, and he resumes his daily visits to Watch Hill. He stores some kindling in a rocky cleft so that it will be safe from the rain and adds to his now-dry beacon. One morning, Michael spots a Chinese junk not far from the island and sprints to light his signal fire. Just as the first leaf catches flame, Kensuke destroys the fire, the pile of kindling, and the piece of glass. Weeping, Michael demands to know why the man foils his attempts to be rescued. Kensuke quietly apologizes and departs back into the forest. Defiantly, Michael crosses the boundary that divides his half of the island from Kensuke’s and swims in the ocean. The man urges the boy to get out of the water. A white jellyfish stings Michael repeatedly, causing him agonizing pain and immobilizing him so that he cannot swim.
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
In the novel’s second section, Michael’s complex relationship with Kensuke defines the protagonist’s experiences on the island, highlighting Morpurgo’s thematic exploration of The Essential Need for Friendship and Companionship. At first, the boy feels “exhilarated, elated, ecstatically happy” at the discovery of the generous anonymous benefactor who leaves him food and water (38). However, he feels desolate after Kensuke tells him to keep his distance. The protagonist’s attitude toward the island’s only other human inhabitant undergoes a major shift when Kensuke thwarts Michael’s efforts to signal the supertanker, and with it, his best hope of rescue. Michael grapples with the complexity of his feelings about Kensuke, saying: “He was looking after me, he was keeping me alive, but he was also keeping me prisoner” (51). The language barrier between the characters adds to the situation’s inherent tension; Michael doesn’t speak Japanese, so Kensuke can’t explain why he forbids him to set fires. Despite the powerful anger that Michael feels toward Kensuke, the man shows dedication and selflessness in his actions toward the boy. For example, he braves the typhoon for Michael’s sake. Michael describes Kensuke’s efforts to care for him, noting, “[E]ven during the worst of it, I would find my fish and fruit breakfast waiting for me every morning” (52). Kensuke’s steadfast and nurturing care lays the foundation for the familial relationship that develops between the two characters in the final section.
The challenges Michael experiences as he adapts to the new realities of life on the island raise the stakes of the plot and reinforce the novel’s genre as an adventure story, centering themes of Survival and Resilience. After being stranded, Michael demonstrates resilience by holding onto his belief that he will reunite with his parents: “I really felt, really believed, there was a chance my prayers would be answered, that this time I would open my eyes and see the Peggy Sue sailing back to rescue me” (48). In these chapters, Michael’s survival skills grow as he teaches himself how to start a fire and weave a hat from plant fibers. However, the protagonist is keenly aware that his continued existence depends on Kensuke, who has spent decades mastering the art of survival on the island: “He would keep me alive, keep Stella alive, but only so long as I lived by his rules” (46). Thus, the theme of survival and resilience contributes to the tension between the characters in this section.
Although Michael and Kensuke’s relationship remains strained in these chapters, their connection reinforces The Essential Need for Friendship and Companionship. For example, Kensuke repeatedly saves Michael’s life, underscoring humans’ need to be in community with other humans. While Michael initially believes that they are “not friends” and “would not be friends” (46), many of his most joyful moments in these chapters stem from Kensuke’s generosity, such as when the man gives him a sheet to protect him from mosquitoes. This gift marks an important thematic moment because it prompts the boy to reflect on his longing for friendship:
I wanted so much to see him again, to talk to him, to hear a human voice. Stella Artois had been a wonderful companion to me, good for confiding in, good for a cuddle, good for a game, but I so missed human company—my mother, my father, lost to me now, perhaps forever (50).
Kensuke’s attentiveness and Michael’s deep desire for companionship foreshadow the friendship that grows between them in the next section.
Despite the sparseness of Michael’s new home on the island, Morpurgo imbues the animals and objects around him with symbolic meaning. The soccer ball, an early symbol of good fortune, becomes even luckier when it helps Michael stay alive after he falls overboard. The boy’s isolation magnifies Stella’s importance as a symbol of friendship—as Michael notes, “More than anything, it was Stella’s companionship that helped me through those first hours on the island” (34). The sheepdog also signals that Kensuke can be trusted when she greets him “like a long lost friend” in Chapter 5 (42). Stella is allowed to cross the boundary line dividing Kensuke’s and Michael’s sides of the island, establishing her as an early link between the two humans and hinting at their eventual companionship. In this section, orangutans emerge as a motif of The Importance of Ethical Relationships With Nature through Kensuke’s bond with the primates. Michael immediately identifies a feeling of solidarity and connection between Kensuke and the orangutans, saying: “When he moved among them, it seemed almost as if he were one of them” (47). In the novel’s final chapters, this motif becomes more prominent as Kensuke and Michael witness the external threats to the animals and natural beauty of the island.
Morpurgo continues his use of foreshadowing to offer clues about major plot events and develop the characters’ motivations. For example, in Chapter 6, Kensuke “dismantle[s] [Michael’s] beacon” and “shatter[s] [his fireglass] to pieces” when the boy tries to light a signal to draw the attention of a Chinese junk (56). Kensuke’s sabotage foreshadows the revelation that the sailors on the junk are poachers who have previously killed some of the island’s wildlife. Additionally, the jellyfish attack—this section’s suspenseful cliffhanger ending that leads to a fundamental shift in the relationship between Michael and Kensuke—is foreshadowed by Kensuke’s warnings that Michael must stay out of the ocean.
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