Fiela’s Child- Dalene Matthee Comparisons Essay

Throughout this ambitious sassy, Matthee shows us how the environment where battalion ar brought up, plays a strong part in who they become. She comp atomic number 18s and contrasts the bright, open expanse of the recollective Kloof with the lousiness of the woodwind, as well as the inhabitants of these areas.The novel tells us the falsehood of a male child who struggles to understand who he is and where he belongs. This boy is benzoin Komoetie.Despite spending his younger years in the care of Fiela Komoetie, a black woman, interference by egg unobjectionable people upturns his life and sends genus Benzoin into the forest to live with woodcutters. This transfer is confusing for a twelve-year-old, and even the insistence of his unused unclouded family that he has returned home, cannot quell his longing for the Kloof and his family in that location.Matthee oft uses nature to describe events in the story and also connects timbres of dark and silly to the places. Th e people of the woods are on the dot about backwards in their slipway they wear little or no learning and their homes are ramshackle huts. However, some of the timbre dwellers are aware of their insignificance to the small town people and other outsiders. During a conversation in the midst of Elias van Rooyen ( gum benzoins new father) and Malie (one of Benjamins aunts), Malie says Im well-nigh forty Elias, and Ive been outside this timbre only twice in my life, and that was just as far as the village.-I say again, if we should all die from a plague this actually day, few would notice. (pg.135-136)The Forest affects its community in many ways it is the life and death of the woodcutters and families. Yet, being from the pertinacious Kloof, Benjamin (now called Lukas) struggles to escape from a aroma of confinement. The colossal trees that tower all near and block out the sun depend to imprison him further. This reference is just after he reaches his new home, deep in t he bush They were somewhere deep at bottom the Forest, it was dark and he was actually panicky for he did not know how he would ever originate out of there again. It was like when you crawled into the crevices after rock rabbits to get at them with a stick and it got so narrow around you that you started sweating with fear. (pg.101)This claustrophobia is very difficult to cope with after the hot, white light Long Kloof. Even the plants are diametric and Matthee emphasises how strange the cool verdure is compared to low yellow scrubland across the veldt.The Forest people are uneducated and believe upon each other for many things. This is shown when the wagon train Rooyen family has to borrow scissors to cut Ninas (Benjamins sister) hair. The family has very few possessions and when Fiela sends Benjamin his personal effects from the Long Kloof, they are immediately snapped up by his new people. I think that the constant shade and shadow. Combined with always being confine to the Forest makes the inhabitants wary of the outside human being and almost wild in their ways.The Long Kloof id hugely different from the Forest and the Komoetie syndicate is independent from the rest of the local landowners. These differences order those who live in whichever community and Benjamin becomes aware of this. One of the moments where we see how he recalls his former life is a sunlight in the Forest On Sundays he longed for the openness of the Kloof, or anywhere where he could have looked into the distance the Forest was so dense, the forest people never cut far apparently they did not fell the open country for the Forest was their home. (pg. 210) all(prenominal) reference to the surroundings that Matthee gives us, relates to the way the different people live their lives. This is an interesting tie-up for the relationships within each community and as Benjamin interacts with either family, we are shown very different attitudes and characters.