This feeling eventually causes Gemmy to leave the settlement to return to the spiritually-attuned life of the Aboriginal Australians, where he lives for several years before being killed in a raid by white colonists. The McIvors slowly form a fondness for and protectiveness of Gemmy, but the derision of the other settlers and the strangeness of white people causes Gemmy’s spirit to be ill at ease with the feeling that he does not belong. Although Gemmy is eager to please, the majority of the white settlers are unsettled by him, since he reminds them of their xenophobic fear of the indigenous Australians who live in the surrounding wilderness. After Gemmy leaves the native Australians to seek out the settlers who look like him, he forms a particular attachment to the first people he meets, Lachlan and Janet and the rest of the McIvor family. Throughout Gemmy’s life, he is haunted by the “demons” of his painful childhood and is looking for a place to belong and people who will love him.
By the time he meets the McIvors, Gemmy speaks, acts, and even looks like the “black” indigenous people-his skin is darkened by the sun and his blonde hair is dirty. Although Gemmy is white and spends his first twelve years in England with his abusive father figure Willett, he lives with Aboriginal Australians for 16 years.
Gemmy is the central protagonist of the story.
