Belonging_Shakespeares_as_You_Like_It_and_Tim_Wintons_Cloudstreet

An individual’s placement within the world creates a powerful formative influence over one’s sense of belonging. Characters experience a level of acceptance and security through their relationships with each other under the influence of their physical surroundings. William Shakespeare’s As You Like It and Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet explore the sense of belonging that develops through familial relationships. Both composers analyse how place can nurture or destroy those affiliations. Places are perhaps most important in shaping the characters sense of belonging or displacement. The worlds of court and countryside are discordant for the court promotes rivalry and disarray; the forest of Arden promotes harmony and congeniality. The juxtapositions between the two settings establish true values and true belonging for those who travel to the forest. Act 2 Scene 3 We see Orlando outside his brother’s house excluded from belonging “this is no place, this house is but a butchery, abhor it, fear it, do not enter.” The use of harsh imperative language is clearly juxtaposed with the harmonious setting of the forest. The house on Cloudstreet begins as a dark, threatening entity. The formidable house at number one Cloudstreet causes a sense of alienation for the Pickles therefore preventing them from experiencing a natural feeling of belonging. The text uses language of alliteration and personification to describe their arrival emphasizing the feeling of displacement the house places on them. “The big emptiness of the house around them, paralysing them with space and surfaces... They have no money and this great continent of house doesn’t belong to them… their lost.” The plays forest setting is physically and spiritually cut off from the characters own world. This isolation has the potential to create a false sense of reality that fosters a re-examination of self and social relationships which inturn lead to insight. It is surely love, more than anything else, which leads to a strong sense of belonging whether that love is for people or places. By exaggerating some views of love, Shakespeare positions the audience to recognise that new surroundings, experiences and companions stimulate open-mindedness amongst the characters. Satire of courtly love is apparent in the image of Orlando running round the forest pinning up his verses in praise of Rosalind Act 3, Scene 2 “run, run, Orlando, Carve on every tree, the fair, the chaste and unexpressive she.” Being ridiculed here emphasises his love in extravagant ways. For an individual to belong an element of compromise is crucial, this is evident in the play. The relationship between Rosalind and Celia is harmonious and there is a symbiosis within their relationship. When Rosalind is banished, Celia says, “Do not seek to take your changes upon you, to bear your grief’s yourself and leave me out.” This explores the idea that in belonging to a friendship there must be equilibrium in the responses of each party. In contrast many relationships begin in disharmony and there is an imbalance of reciprocation. Winton also expresses his characters relationships as unstable and tumultuous. Similar to As you like it, Cloudstreet begins in conflict and social alienation but ends with harmony, love and marriage that has been fostered by altered outlooks. The unforeseen marriage of Quick and Rose presents the importance reconciliation can have to belonging. “Together they make a balloon of heat inside the cold nausea of that dead room whose timbers twist and creek; a new dwelling place. Love rattles the wallpaper and darkness recedes.” Contrasting the Negative physical environment shows the burgeoning love they feel for each other. Through the personification of love, Winton demonstrates how the power of their reconciliation diminishes the conflict between the two families developed in the house. A Place is the pivotal point in which one discovers relationships and personal identity providing an individual with emotions of self-assurance and stability, which subsequently directs them to their content physical and/or spiritual state. Relationships weather positive or pessimistic within a place, help individuals clearly distinguish where they truly belong within society.