What message comes across strongly in the Fiela’s Child?

Despite being white, Benjamin struggles greatly to integrate into the white van Rooyen family, initially calling his father “master” and behaving like a "Coloured." After years spent in the forest, he can only pretend to be a van Rooyen; his heart is still with the Komoeties. The surrounding characters, such as the magistrate, find it difficult to believe that a white boy could get along so well in a black family, seeing the two races as occupying separate worlds. Yet Benjamin's ultimate decision to leave behind his role as Lukas van Rooyen and return to the Komoetie home sends a clear message that our identity is independent of our race and is open to self-definition. It is the love and joy that Benjamin experienced at Wolwekraal that brings him back there; the difference of race is of least concern.