Belonging Essay Example for Free

Belonging EssayAccording to Maslows hierarchy of gentlemans gentleman needs, venerate and be is what drives human existence. We search for a mavin of belong every day of our lives, not realising that it is our perceptions and attitudes towards belong that feel the ful frivol awayent we experience. We chiffonier film how we belong and the level of fulfilment we experience by ever-changing our perceptions and attitude.This c one timept is expressed done and through the poetry of Peter Skrzyneckis Immigrant Chronicle, Marc Fosters film Finding Neverland and Nam Les short story Love and Honour and disdain and Pity and ruth and Sacrifice. Skrzynecki communicates the way that his perceptions and attitudes towards belonging affected his ability to feel finish and content from a cultural spatial relation through his poetic anthology Immigrant Chronicle. In Feliks Skrzynecki the poet describes the admiration he has for his get and the way that he burn remain connected to Po land in his mind whilst living in new country. Skrzynecki h old(a)s the word gentle to correct his father, demonstrating the level of respect he has for him.He references the saying keeping up with the Joneses in the distribution channel kept pace only with the Joneses/ Of his own minds making to communicate that his father is able to feel content and fulfilled by choosing to stay connected with Poland, but only in his mind can he do so because they now live so far away. Skrzynecki doesnt understand how his father can choose to belong, demonstrating his confusion by saying that his father is happy as I fuck off never been. We light to understand that Skrzyneckis attitude towards belonging to his Polish heritage reflects his feelings of dis familiarity in the rime Ancestors.The bill where sand and grasses never stir is a metaphor utilize to represent the stagnation of Skrzyneckis connection with his Polish heritage. He is plagued with guilt and frustration as a conduce of his disconnection and this is demonstrated through the accusatory nature of the figures in his dream. The use of alliteration communicates Skrzyneckis threat Standing lift to shoulder. Skrzynecki does not realise that it is his own perceptions and attitudes that prevent him from belonging to hisPolish ancestors, and this is reflected in his use of rhetorical questions through by the poem how long is their wait to be? Skrzyneckis attitudes towards belonging begin to change in the poem 10 Mary Street and a greater reek of fulfilment is communicated. Skrzynecki references his own poem Feliks Skrzynecki in the line tended roses and camellias/ like adopted children. This demonstrates that Skrzyneckis perception of his fathers sense of belonging to his garden had changed. In Feliks Skrzynecki Skrzynecki felt excluded because his father loved his garden like an only child.In 10 Mary Street he realises that the sense of belonging he shares with his father is greater than the connection his father has with the garden and that to him it is just like an adopted child. This change in attitude leads to the last poem of the anthology transmit Card in which Skrzynecki comes to the realisation that he has the ability to choose where and how he belongs. He redeems of a interest card that has been sent to him by a friend visiting Warsaw, the townspeopleship in Poland where he and his parents once lived.Skrzynecki gives a description of the post card that is plainly devoid of emotion until the last line The interchanges the brightest shade. This line is positively connoted and reflects Skrzyneckis realisation that he has the ability to connect with Warsaw. Skrzynecki directly addresses the town by stating I never knew you. This personifies the town and further demonstrates the poets growing connection. Skrzynecki uses the qualifier for the moment to undercut the line I never knew you which is repeated in the fourth stanza.This demonstrates that Skrzynecki recognises t hat he doesnt feel a sense of belonging to his Polish heritage, but that he is willing to explore it. He once again addresses the town with a rhetorical question in the fourth stanza Whats my choice to be? This directly communicates that Skrzynecki understands that he has a choice about connecting to his Polish heritage and belonging, whilst also conveying his sense of indecision. Throughout the correct anthology Skrzynecki communicates his feelings of disconnection from both Australian and Polish cultures.Post Card is Skrzyneckis resolution as he is content with acknowledging that he doesnt have to belong, and at the same time recognising that he doesnt have to feel excluded from his Polish culture either. He uses the last lines of the poem to communicate that he does feel most sense of belonging to Warsaw, through personifying the town as speaking to him On a rivers bank/ A lone tree whispers/ We will meet before you die. This externalises Skrzyneckis new perceptions and attit ude towards belonging and his acknowledgment that he will visit Poland one day and then make the choice as to whether or not he belongs to it.Marc Fosters Finding Neverland alludes to the perception that a place where we belong can be created, through imagination as well as relationships. The booster station James Barrie James Barrie is the protagonist in Finding Neverland and uses his imagination to create a place where he can hide from the lovesick reality of his failing plays and marriage, a place where he belongs. Foster demonstrates Barries sense of not belonging at the beginning of the movie, when we see the playwright peeping through the stage curtains at the audience in the theatre.This shows us that Barrie is anxious, an emotion that is juxtaposed with those of the laughing, relaxed theatregoers. His anxiety and inner turmoil is further demonstrated when a point of pot camera shot shows us that Barrie is imagining a rain storm with a colour pallet of slanted blues and blacks at bottom the theatre. The repeated image of a door is used to demonstrate the disconnection amongst Barrie and his wife. For example, when Barrie asks Mary if she would like to join him on a walk to the park she declines via a shout through a closed door.During another scene Mary and Barrie are left bickering, and are again abrupt by doors when the couple retire to their separate bedrooms. The doorway into which Mary retreats is dark and presents a sense of sombreness for the woman, but Barries doorway reveals brightly coloured parkland. This is where we are introduced to the concept of the complex quantity Neverland and the purpose it has in allowing Barrie to choose to exist in a world where he belongs. When Barrie meets the Davies family his perceptions and attitudes towards belonging begin to change.The warm relationship he is forming with the four young boys and their mother is represented through the shared experience of imaginary worlds. The scenes interchange ba ck and forth surrounded by the Davies back yard and an old western tavern where the boys play a game of Cowboys and Indians. Likewise, a setting of a quiet, countryside pine forest becomes an Amazonian jungle in which the Davies family are pirates awaiting to be appointed to the crew of Captain Barrie. The editing is fast paced to show that the sense of belonging that Barrie and the Davies are ontogeny through their relationships with one another is becoming stronger.Barrie comes to the realisation that he can belong outside of his imaginary world. Foster uses close up shots that are shared between him and the Davies boys, which communicate the strong bonds of love and experience that they have with each other whilst also demonstrating Barries new perceptions of belonging. Barrie has a choice as to whether he belongs in reality or in Neverland. Nam Les Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice also demonstrates that perceptions and attitudes determine an ind ividuals ability to belong, through the relationship between a young writer appropriately named Nam and his father.In the title of his short story, Le references William Faulkner and the verities that define human interaction. The words become Nams influence in adapting his perceptions and attitudes towards belonging throughout the story. Nam struggles over whether he should use his fathers account of surviving the My Lai massacre as a fourteen year old boy and later Vietnamese prison camps after the fall of Saigon for a writing assignment.A strong sense of disconnection is evident between Nam and his father, demonstrated through the use of short, blunt sentences and pronouns that separate the cardinal characters identities from each other He loved speaking in Vietnamese proverbs. I had long since well-educated to ignore it. Nam is influenced by his mentors who tell him that ethnic literature is hot, but he questions whether Faulkners verities would keep back to any ethnic liter ature that he could write when he doesnt feel a sense of belonging to his Vietnamese heritage.Nam feels pressured to get his story done, and the only thing breaking him free of his writers block is his fathers past F**k it, I thought. I had two and a half days left. I would write the ethnic story of my Vietnamese father. Personal pronouns are used in this example to communicate that Nam is writing the story for his own gain, and not his fathers because thither is no sense of belonging in their relationship. The use of profanity suggests that there is internal conflict within Nam and guilt over not feeling a true sense of belonging with his father and Vietnamese history.Nams attitude towards feeling a sense of belonging to his fathers story changes when a friend tells him that the reason he respects his writing is because he doesnt exploit the Vietnamese thing. He feels a sense of shame for taking his fathers history so lightly We were locked in all the intricate ways of guilt. Th is is where Nam comes to realise that even though his heritage is rich with the verities that Faulkner talked about, he cannot write truthfully without feeling a sense of belonging to his Vietnamese culture or his father.Nam chooses to reach out to his father in attempt to understand and build up a sense of belonging to what he had indite about. He uses his new perspective about his father and his fathers past to rewrite the story, and the pronouns me and he are used in the same sentences now, to show the sons connection to his father He would see how powerful was his experience, how valuable his suffering how I had made it speak for more than itself. He would be pleased with me. Nam has chosen to change his attitude towards the relationship he has with his father and as a result can belong through his new understanding.All three texts communicate how changes in perspectives and attitudes towards belonging determine the level of fulfilment we can experience. Through these texts we can perceive that belonging is a choice and that our perceptions and attitudes towards belonging determine how fulfilling our lives are. If we can control our perceptions and attitudes towards belonging, we can effectively control how we belong, and as a result develop a higher understanding and awareness of our own identities.