Belonging Romulus

AOS concepts: * How Gaita’s choice of language, imagery and relation biography genre convey meaning about the concept of belong and shape your response. * How his choices have been influenced by his strong sense of belonging to his father, his alienation form his mother, his coming to terms with his relationships and his sense of self * How Gaita represents belonging through representations of people, their relationships, ideas, the landscape, events and society’s response. * How his assumptions about belonging have influenced his representation. * How the individuals’ perceptions of belonging or not belonging in the biography can vary and are shaped by his or her personal, cultural, historical and social context. * How you perceive the world through Romulus my father and related texts * Perception refers to the interplay of recognition and is influenced by our preconceived ideas, memories, experiences and senses. It can alter and even distort how we view the notion of belonging. * How Gaita’s and you perspectives are shaped by personal, cultural, historical and social contexts * Child of migrants * Mental illness * A difficult and fraught childhood * Professor or moral philosophy * The connections between texts through the concept of belonging * Compare and contrast * Connect through the thesis or line of argument

Aspects of belonging: * The potential of the individual to enrich or challenge a community or group: Christine, Lydia, Hora * Represent choices not to belong, or barriers which prevent belonging: mental illness, attitudes, values * The way attitudes to belonging are modified over time: * Romulus becomes more detached and isolated after his experiences with women * Christine realizes what she has lost * Gaita detaches form his mother

My personal response: * The possibilities presented by a sense of belonging to or exclusion form the text and the world it