Belonging

As humans we strive to belong and we struggle to feel accepted on a consistent basis, it is uncommon for one to belong without being accepted. A sense of belonging can appear from the connections and relations made with places, people, groups, communities and in term the larger world. There are many aspects of belonging in terms of experiences and notions of identity, relationships, acceptance and understanding. Good morning teachers and students, the characters in the prescribed and additional texts I have studied, reveal notions of acceptance, understanding, relationships, and identity in order to belong. The composers have used various techniques to reflect characterization. These include: method of narration, lyrical and musical composition and cinematic techniques in ‘Strictly Ballroom’, ‘The Lovely Bones’ and ‘Eleanor Rigby’.

The novel ‘The Lovely Bones’ by Alice Sebold, is the story of a teenage girl Susie Salmon who after being raped and murdered, is stuck in an in-between fairytale world as she watches her family and friends struggle to move on with their lives. Susie is trapped in a world that she isn’t familiar with and has no sense of belonging, Susie tries her hardest to escape, return back to reality but it is impossible.   Alice Sebold has portrayed this through the use of dialogue including colloquial language. Instantly we are confronted by Susie’s identity and the crisis to where she belongs and doesn’t belong.
Susie begins to acknowledge that she has no way of returning to her family. The notion of acceptance and understanding is revealed with dialogue when Susie say’s “I wasn't lost, or frozen, or gone... I was alive; I was alive in my own perfect world”. This is used to underline how Susie has developed a sense of belonging and has come forward to accept herself and her in-between fairytale world.
Susie is out of her comfort zone because, In order for Susie to belong, she has to feel open and accept where she is and now where she belongs....