Stolen

Ty, the novel’s antagonist, is a complex and multifaceted character whose motivations and actions drive the initial plot of the story. On the surface, Ty appears to be a brutal and manipulative captor, kidnapping Gemma and holding her against her will in the Australian desert. He is described as tall, muscular, tan, and blonde, with piercing blue eyes. Gemma initially finds him attractive, as did her friends who saw him working in the park.

At first, Ty is terrifying and cryptic. He drugs Gemma and kidnaps her. When she fights him, he reacts with anger and occasional violence, dragging her back to the house and tying her to the bed. He is unpredictable, highly emotional, and competent at living in the hostile Outback.

In one of his outbuildings, he mixes paints out of rock and sand. He spends much of his time painting the walls, ceilings, and his own body in forms reflecting the landscape around him. He pastes dried flowers and bits of gravel to himself to create a painting that allows him to feel one with the land. Gemma later realizes that the patterns reflect what the Outback looks like from above. When the setting sun shines on his painting, it illuminates the colors and allows him to feel spiritually alive.

Ty gradually reveals elements of his tragic past. Through flashbacks and conversations with Gemma, Ty reveals that his parents neglected and abandoned him. Ty learned how to survive on the land from the “oldfellows” or Aboriginal population. Finally, the state came and caught him with a net, cutting his face and giving him his signature scar beneath his eye. They took him back to the city and put him in a group home and eventually into foster care. He eventually returned to England, hoping to reunite with his mother but instead becoming unhoused. There, he spotted the young Gemma and became obsessed with her.

On one level, Ty's actions toward Gemma can be seen as a form of reenactment of the trauma he experienced in his own past. By controlling and manipulating Gemma, Ty is able to regain a sense of power and agency that he lacked in his own life. He saw his life in the city as a kind of prison, depriving him of the freedom and self-determination he had learned in the Outback. From his warped perspective, he thinks he is saving Gemma and liberating her by taking her to the Outback.

Ty's character also raises questions about the nature of good and evil. While Ty's actions are undoubtedly wrong and harmful, they are also motivated by deep pain and trauma. His characterization illustrates how trauma and pain can shape individual behavior. Furthermore, Ty's character serves as a foil to Gemma's. While Gemma is portrayed as a strong and resilient survivor, Ty is shown to be more vulnerable and fragile. This contrast highlights the different ways in which individuals respond to trauma.

Gemma’s parents are a significant presence in the novel, even during her captivity. Gemma’s father is an emotionally reserved man who works in finance. Gemma is surprised when he tells reporters to “fuck off” at the end of the novel. She remembers how he thinks in metaphors of business, considering certain actions “good business.” Gemma wonders whether his family would be considered “good business.” Gemma’s mother is an art curator whose job requires the family to travel all over the world. At the beginning of the novel, Gemma clashes with her mother over the skimpiness of her shirt, a jockeying between mother and daughter for independence.

While Gemma is in captivity, Ty begins to warp her perspective of her parents. He tells her that her parents wanted to shape her in their own image. He views them as emissaries of the oppressive and spiritually empty city. He tells her that her parents were planning to move away without her and leave her in the dorms at school, making her doubt whether they really love her.

At the end, when Gemma’s parents arrive, Ty’s narrative about them begins to fall apart. They are protective of Gemma and devoted to her recovery. They insist they never thought about moving away without her. They accept her decision to stay in Australia for a while and stay with her, comforting her when she’s upset and defending her from hounding reporters.

Anna and Ben are Gemma’s friends from before her captivity. She thinks often of them and the way they used to hang around in the park, drinking and exploring their nascent teenage independence. Ty alludes to Gemma’s crush on Ben, which fostered resentment between her and Anna. She felt this resentment acutely the night in the park when Josh Holmes followed her; Anna and Ben were hooking up in front of everyone, leaving Gemma alone, drunk, and vulnerable. Despite this complexity, Gemma misses her friends greatly and feels comfort when she imagines their faces.

Josh Holmes is a classmate of Gemma’s who had a crush on her. No matter how many times she rejected him, he continued to hang around her friend group and proposition her. He sent her creepy notes and made her feel generally uncomfortable. One night in the park, Gemma’s friends were all drunk and coupled off, leaving her alone with Josh. She sensed acute danger as he began to follow her through the dark park. She was drunk and vulnerable, and she knew that he had been waiting for this kind of opportunity to get her alone. In captivity, she learns that Ty attacked Josh that night, preventing him from cornering her. For Ty, Josh serves as evidence that Ty is Gemma’s protector rather than her captor. For Gemma, the Josh incident makes her understanding of Ty more complex as she struggles to reconcile Ty’s protective act with his stalking, obsession, and kidnapping.