Remembering Babylon: Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

George Abbot is only 19, though he gives the impression of being in his mid-twenties by his stern demeanor, his habits of a much older man, and his refusal to recognize his own youth in any manner whatsoever. George despises Australia and the roughness of the settlers and the isolation of his position, feeling that it does not give credit to his own “fineness” and “high prospects,” though a part of him recognizes such things are thin illusions. His demeanor keeps him isolated, despised by the other boy his age and embarrassed by the girls, so he takes out his repressed anger by being severe to his young students, beating them for wrong answers or misbehaviors. Such violence makes him feel briefly relieved until the their looks of pain fill him with shame and sadness.

George “never meant to come to Australia.” As a child, he lives a privileged life with a fine education funded by his eccentric godfather, Mr. Robertson, who dotes on him and gives him gifts. Although he is a quick and charming child, as he grows older, his charm seems childish and people pay less attention to him; “the beginnings of a terrible plainness began to declare itself.” Cousin Alisdair, who is obsessed with appearance and aesthetics, subsequently begins to ignore him, though still funding his education.

George, disenchanted with his own life, begins to dream of exploring Africa, feeling that the harshness of the continent would refine his plain self into the greatness he feels he is destined for. When he brings his request to Mr. Robertson as a young man, his benefactor instead insists that he go to Australia, which is just beginning to be settled, and where the land is fertile and rich by all reports.

Instead, George’s life in Australia is “desolate, without hope,” and mean to him. While he believed Africa “would have tempered his soul to hardness,” Australia simply causes him to languish with its clammy heat and dull people. When the McIvor children bring Gemmy to school, George strictly forbids it, partly in revulsion to Gemmy but also because he resents Lachlan, who is sharp, quick, and easily his best student. Lachlan also yearns for the affection of his elders, and so George pointedly and pettily refuses it, even mocking Lachlan for always having Gemmy around, until “it [becomes] Lachlan who now [keeps] Gemmy away.”