Wild Cat Island symbolizes freedom from the world of adults. “If there had been no island, no sailing boat” (18), and no large lake, the narrator says, the Walker children might have been happy just to row in the bay near the farm. The telegram from their father, granting them permission to camp on the island alone, “set[s] them free” (67). From this moment on, Imagination as a Gateway to Freedom is the primary theme of the text.

The island is the setting for real adventures—ones that no adult would ever have sanctioned, particularly the battle between the Swallows and the Amazons to be the first to capture the others’ sailboat. In addition, everyday camping activities, such as setting up tents, bathing, fishing, and cooking, are made more exciting by the children’s imaginative play. Bathing in the lake becomes an exercise in pearl diving for Titty and Roger; the pike they see while they are fishing becomes a shark, and a meal with tinned corned beef and ginger beer becomes piratical pemmican and grog.

When the children are away from the island, they are in the world of adults, most of whom they find exceedingly dull.