“The Serpent King” Is a novel where a boy named Dill was the son of a pentecostal minister. He has two friends Lydia and Travis who are trying to help him escape his problem and his only escape was music or his feeling for Lydia. In this novel the author Jeff Zentner made the setting a small town. This is important to the story because Dill, Lydia, and Travis would never meet, Dill and Lydia would have never date each other, and Dill would have never went to college if is was not for his friends.

 At the start the setting was not major but, as the book go on the setting was really important because,’”You’d never have made friends with Dill and Travis if we didn’t live here”’(Zentner 115) Is what Lydia’s dad said which is true because if the three of them lived somewhere else they wouldn’t even see each other. The three of them were pretty much force to be friends because all the other people bully them or did not want to be Dill friends because of his dad and what he did in the past.

In addition to them being forced to be friend Dill and Lydia would have never dated each other if the setting was a city or a more populated town because both of them might had more choices to who to date. Zenter made it so, Lydia had no choice but Dill that why when talking to her mom Lydia said.’”Of course. Who else was I going to date here?”’(324). The setting made the novel had less opportunities on how to escape the problem Dill’s face because both of his friend can leave him already but, Dill can not go unless he choose music or his feeling for Lydia.

Certainly without Dill’s friend he would have never go to college. His friend is important to Dill and if he lived elsewhere they would not support him. He would not go to his friend’s house to get help from her to help him write a acceptance letter. “And then one warm day in late April, Dill came home from school to find an acceptance letter from MTSU” Zentner(311). Zentner made this novel a about the setting and Dill’s friends.

With this in mind Zentner wanted to show young people who struggle to live in a unglamorous place and what they had to go through. He made the setting a small town and harsh so, people will know what teens go through in the real world or at least close to what teens go through.