External Conflict In Fiela's Child

In the book Fiela’s Child, a young boy named Benjamin shows up at Fiela Komoetie's door in the middle of the night, alone and crying. Fiela takes him in as one of her own, until he is suddenly ripped from her hold and put with his "real" family. This causes him to lose his grasp on who he thought he was and ultimately creates conflicts within the communities and himself. The author Dalene Matthee illustrates Benjamin/Lukas' struggle to find his identity through the book. She illustrates this through portraying race issues in the story, the struggle of adapting to a new family, and the comparison of the two different families.

The main external conflict Benjamin faces is race conflicts due to him being white and Fiela being colored. This is

This is an internal conflict mainly because it effects Benjamin and how he is as a person. Switching families forced him to adopt a new personality and lifestyle that he wasn't used to. Whatever he did in Fiela’s household, was different in the Van Rooyen household. One of the most difficult changes for him to get used to was his name change. "They said his name was Lukas. His name was not Lukas. His name was Benjamin Komoetie." (Mathee 120). This shows that he is in denial about having a new identity and that he is not going to be willing to give up the one he already has without a fight. No matter how many times they call him Lukas, he will always know himself as Benjamin. However, this mindset of Benjamin would later cause problems. For example, when the novel says, "It did not help not to answer when they called him Lukas." (Mathee 120). Because Benjamin did not consider himself Lukas, he never responded to that name. This went on from the moment he met his new parents to a few weeks later. However, this shows the family now losing patience with Benjamin when he refuses to go by his new identity. It is obvious they want him to feel at home despite living somewhere else his entire life but how can they succeed when they can’t talk to Lukas? This attitude will not change with Benjamin. Despite being told that he is to live with this new family, he still believes that Fiela is going to come and rescue him and bring him home. This is shown when Benjamin tells Nina, "My mother will come and fetch me, you'll see." (Mathee 121). Although he was told to forget about Fiela and also told he would not see her again, he still hopes that she will rescue him and bring him to his real