Two Wolves

One of the more important contexts that informs Two Wolves is geography. The novel takes place in Australia with most of the novel occurring near a remote cabin in the wilderness. Bancks refers to this wilderness as the “bush,” which simultaneously refers to small rural towns outside of the densely populated coastal regions and the sparsely populated wilderness. Generally, the bush refers to greener forested regions, while the Australian Outback evokes images of dry, red deserts. While the outback in particular has a mythologized reputation as no man’s land, Aboriginal peoples have lived in the bush and the outback for tens of thousands of years, foraging and hunting the flora and fauna native to the region, known as bushfood. As noted by Ben in Two Wolves, these foods are vastly different than the cultivated vegetables of his sister’s vegetable patch, and he’s not sure he knows how to survive on bushfood.

Bancks uses the varied bush landscape to highlight the danger of the family’s situation. The cabin is situated on a hill with steep slopes down to a river and many eucalyptus trees, and the family members frequently become sick or exhausted traversing this landscape. Another