Area Of Study HSC Generic Essay

Belonging
For time immemorial, human beings have strived to form relationships with their
esoteric and physical surrounds, sourced from the fundamental sense of
existential security connections between an individual and their socio-cultural
milieu provide one with. Through the nurturing of a multi-faceted sense of
belonging, or the contrastive experience of alienation, individuals face the
struggle for acceptance and a static identity, resulting in an exploration of self
and innate progression towards self-actualisation. As such, the deprivation or
endowment of a sense of belonging holds the dual capacity to challenge and
develop an individuals sense of place in the world, literarily demonstrated in
Raimond Gaitas elegiac memoir Romulus My Father, David Eddings novel The
Pawn of Prophecy, and Faith Akins filmic production The Edge of Heaven;
encompassing aspects such as identity formation, and acceptance.
The moral values and psychological security an emotional, cultural and physical
sense of belonging provide one with principally shape their identity. In Romulus
My Father, the author, Raimond Gaitas familial allegiances to Romulus and
loco parentis, Hora, form the foundations of his moral outlook and identity,
as From my father and Hora I acquired a sense that only morality was
absolute because some of its demands were non-negotiable. Gaitas
perceptive tone of first-person narration and retrospective diction intimately
elucidate how his father and Horas strong sense of moral reality shaped
his individuality; an effect inversely corroborated through Christines
degradational isolation. The biblical allusion she dreamed of Jesus, who
appeared to her bloody and showing the wounds of the crucifixion,
infuses pathos into Christines characterisation, with her existential void
constructing barriers to the enrichment of her identity, and instead instigating
the devolution of her cheerful and vivacious personality into preoccupied
and uncommunicative. This is further emblemised in Gaitas reflection on the
awkwardness and symbolic distance between us with his childhood
deprivation of a physical feminine presence compensated for by Romulus;
shaping his identity and anaphoric, high-modal tribute "I know what a good
workman iswhat honesty iswhat friendship isI know because I
remember these things in the person of my father".
In The Pawn of Prophecy, David Eddings analogously forefronts the embedded
need for constructive and mutual connections in the determination of one's
identity, through the orphaning of the protagonist, Garion. Eddings
embedded use of rhetoric in Garions existential monologue [he] often found
himself staring at the question, Who am I? present the importance of
belonging in identity formation, as the sudden evolution of Aunt Pol into the
globally venerated Lady Polgara, metaphorically sawed[s] at his
[Garions] sense of identity. Eddings representations resonate with
Christines desolation and pessimistic view that she was doomed, with
the dramatic irony of Aunt Pol's statement Yes that is the name I am known
as for now, similarly augmenting a pathetic mood, as Garion states I dont
have anybody in the world at all. Im all alone Garions gnawing

Area Of Study HSC Generic Essay

Belonging
uncertainty and sullen anger symbolise adolescent confusions and
existential fears similar to Gaitas pronouncement that You dont love me,
however his display of affection upon learning that Your Aunt really is
your Aunt, similar to Gaitas retrospective acknowledgement of his fathers
self-sacrifice and love, ultimately delineate the dualistic nature of belonging, and
its centrality in the process of individuation.
Acceptance is a quintessential virtue required in instigating the diversification of
an underdeveloped or singular sense of belonging, into a multilayered
complexity. Such a notion is demonstrated in Romulus My Father, through the
juxtaposition of Romulus unreconciled state, and offendedeyes" to the
redefinition of Gaita's personal outlook. The figurative contrast between Gaitas
high-modal diction of Romulus Gaita always considered himself a
Romanian and his epiphanous tone in For the first time in my life I was
really alive to beauty, receiving a kind shock from it explicates how
acceptance permits multilayered experiences and senses of belonging to arise.
Through a lexical chain stringing together the blue sky, white through
yellow to brown and summer-coloured grasses, Gaita generates natural
imagery characterising him as a persona explicating the magnitude of
acceptance; emphasised through Romulus contrastive, figurative feeling like a
prisoner and Christines degradation to a point of lethargy and
restlessness. Gaitas recollections of how his acceptance metaphorically,
crystallised in me a sense of freedom that I possessed earlier, but never
so fully', combines with his confessional tone to thus exacerbate the necessity
of acceptance in cementing connections with ones social and physical milieu.
Eddings portrayals of Garions acceptance of Sendarian virtues and Faldors farm
principally stabilise his fractured sense of self. Through an omnipresent narrative
voice, Eddings explicates how Garions incorporation of Sendarian virtues of
work, thrift, sobriety, good manners and practicality served as moral and
psychological compensation for his adolescent incertitude. The motif of Faldors
farm, emblemising Garions physical acceptance, is chiefly demonstrated
through the collective utilisation of cumulation and a descriptive tone in The
kitchen at Faldors farm was a large, low-beamed room filled with
great spits that turned slowly in cavern like arched fireplaces,
generating vivid imagery evincing Garions comfort and security despite his
familial alienation. Such representations resonate with Gaitas first-person
narration of how the metaphoric workshop of nature capacitated an
understanding of "my sense of that life, of the ideas that informed it. As
the novel reaches a restorative denouement antonymous to Romulus My Father,
the lines No matter how high Garion rosehe never forgot that all his
memories began in that kitchen symbolically present the entwinement of
Garions familial and physical allegiances, allowing him to finally state I am a
Sendar; thus foregrounding the interconnectivity of acceptance and nurturing
of a sense of belonging.

Area Of Study HSC Generic Essay

Belonging
Faith Akins film, The Edge of Heaven, mirrors such portrayals through the
evolution of the protagonist, Nejats relationship with his father, Ali. From the
outset of the film, a sense of familial disparity is established through juxtaposed
panning shots depicting Alis promiscuity and Nejat's amicability, and Alis hostile
tonality in You have your life, and I have mine. Dont tell me what to
do. The transition of Nejats nonchalance, "No murderer is my father, into
overpowering anxiety is articulated in close-ups of him reflecting on his
childhood, stating that He said he would even make God his enemy, to
protect me.' Nejats nostalgic tone and gauging of a biblical allusion combine to
place a dual emphasis on the perpetuity of familial connections, synonymous to
Gaitas emotive narration of we came together as son and husband with
the woman whose remains lay beneath us. In the final scenes of the film,
the absence of background music coalesces with a wide-shot of Nejat's gazing
toward the symbolic Edge of Heaven', to present a restorative ending
synonymous to The Pawn of Prophecy and antonymous to Gaita's Romulus My
Father; thus foregrounding the interconnectivity of acceptance and nurturing of a
sense of belonging.
Through insightful representations of notions of identity and acceptance,
Raimond Gaitas Romulus My Father, David Eddings The Pawn of Prophecy, and
Faith Akins The Edge of Heaven thus illuminate audiences on the imbedded
intricacies of belonging, and its preponderance in the enrichment of an
individual's perception of self, and the world.