Area of Study - Belonging

Area of study- belonging

Part b- speech

Good morning/afternoon class and Mr steel, today I am going to speak about what belonging means to me and how Skrzynecki's "migrant hostel" and "postcard" relate to Armin Greder's' "the island" and the concepts explored of belonging and not belonging that have shaped and added to my personal understanding of belonging. I believe that it is impossible to feel as though you truly belong without forming connections to the people and the place you are trying to belong to.

In Skrzynecki's ‘migrant hostel' the use of enjambment in stanza one is to show that the migrants were coming and going- not stationary and thereby unable to form a true connection with the place. The high modality of "no-one kept count.." helps generate a negative atmosphere and tone of the poem to show the reader the poets lack of connection and in a sense the feeling of not belonging to this place from the very beginning of the poem. The impersonal description of "arrivals of newcomers in busloads.." suggests a lot of people were moving around and that the hostel which was meant to be their home was actually forcing them to live a very uncertain and erratic lifestyle preventing them from belong to this place. In the second stanza, "Nationalities sought each other out.." emphasises the instinctive need to find something familiar in a foreign place- people with the same background or who speak the same language in order to find links, the similarities which would help them to belong. In the third stanza, the figurative use of "a barrier at the main gate sealed off the highway.." reinforces the negative tone and the vivid image of confinement and entrapment the migrants felt by the hostel. Skrzynecki uses personification "as it rose and fell like a finger pointed in reprimand or shame.." to convey the patronising and prejudice view that is typical in elements of society; affecting their sense of belonging to the people around them.

Armin Greder's picture book, "The Island" explores the notion of not belonging through the intentionally bleak illustrations- The symbolism of the man's nakedness compared to the clothed islanders which highlights the physical barrier to belonging the man experiences. The use of short fragmented sentences isolated on the page "he wasn't like them" with the use of charcoal and dark shades sends us a clear picture of the pessimistic tone of the book, and is representative of their hostile stand as a group against one individual. The visual layout means the pictures of the villagers often fill the page, making them very large, bold and confronting; the illustrations, full of dark imposing images are dramatically presented on stark white backgrounds. The use of irony and juxtaposition of