Belonging Essay 'Romulus My Father', 'the Lost Thing' and 'the Catcher in the Rye'
‘In order to fully understand who we are we need to belong.’ How true is this statement in regards to your class text and two others?
Our search for who we are is fuelled by our innate desire to achieve a sense of acceptance and belonging. Belonging doesn’t just happen; it involves many factors and experiences in order to feel that you truly belong. Feeling a sense of inclusion can enrich our identity and relationships and can lead to acceptance and understanding. In order to understand who we are we need to belong and this is effectively represented in Raimond Gaita’s memoir ‘Romulus My Father,’ Shaun Tan’s ‘The Lost Thing’ and JD Salinger’s ‘The Catcher in the Rye.’
An individual’s interaction with others and the world around them can enrich or limit their experience of belonging to an environment. ‘Romulus My Father’ demonstrates this through the profound sense of acceptance that exists within Raimond. He delivers his observations in a reflective and thoughtful tone, particularly in his recollections of his father, as he “loved him too deeply… no quarrel could estrange (them)” and felt a genuine sense of familial belonging. This is also evident even after Christine dies. He observed, “We came together as son and husband with the woman whose remains lay beneath us.” Juxtaposed against Raimond’s belonging is the suffering of Christine in her displacement. Christine struggles to be the mother that society expects her to be, and her inability to relate and conform is described by Raimond as, “a troubled city girl, she could not settle… in a landscape that highlighted her isolation.” Raimond’s despondent tone conveys how Christine could not fit into the community and in Australia. As a result, her isolation and alienation lead her to betray the institution of family juxtaposed by “I felt awkward with her,” which shows that Raimond’s relationship with his mother has lost the familial belonging it once contained. Similar to Christine’s feelings of estrangement,
Our search for who we are is fuelled by our innate desire to achieve a sense of acceptance and belonging. Belonging doesn’t just happen; it involves many factors and experiences in order to feel that you truly belong. Feeling a sense of inclusion can enrich our identity and relationships and can lead to acceptance and understanding. In order to understand who we are we need to belong and this is effectively represented in Raimond Gaita’s memoir ‘Romulus My Father,’ Shaun Tan’s ‘The Lost Thing’ and JD Salinger’s ‘The Catcher in the Rye.’
An individual’s interaction with others and the world around them can enrich or limit their experience of belonging to an environment. ‘Romulus My Father’ demonstrates this through the profound sense of acceptance that exists within Raimond. He delivers his observations in a reflective and thoughtful tone, particularly in his recollections of his father, as he “loved him too deeply… no quarrel could estrange (them)” and felt a genuine sense of familial belonging. This is also evident even after Christine dies. He observed, “We came together as son and husband with the woman whose remains lay beneath us.” Juxtaposed against Raimond’s belonging is the suffering of Christine in her displacement. Christine struggles to be the mother that society expects her to be, and her inability to relate and conform is described by Raimond as, “a troubled city girl, she could not settle… in a landscape that highlighted her isolation.” Raimond’s despondent tone conveys how Christine could not fit into the community and in Australia. As a result, her isolation and alienation lead her to betray the institution of family juxtaposed by “I felt awkward with her,” which shows that Raimond’s relationship with his mother has lost the familial belonging it once contained. Similar to Christine’s feelings of estrangement,