Belonging

English – Belonging By: Stewart Shore Belonging can be treated in different ways. To belong you need to have some sort of relationship with something, for example, people, an environment or a culture. ‘The Crucible’ and the two supporting texts are appropriate for the theme belonging because they can give a clear example of what it means to belong all three texts also discuss the notion of the consequences of not belonging or choosing to stay outside the group. Two supporting texts that can demonstrate the theme belonging are Oodgeroo’s poems and the movie E.T. The charactisation of belonging will be explored in the essay. ‘The Crucible’ is a text that can fall under the theme Belonging. The text consists of people trying to belong to other people, groups and the town. Abigail is a young girl who by her own actions alienates herself from the community. She wanted to belong to the community by doing this she plays with everyone’s lives and ends up ruining there’s and even her own. Getting with John brought major tension between himself and Elizabeth. Elizabeth states “spoke or silent, a promise is surely made. And she may dote on it now – I am sure she does – and thinks to kill me, then to take my place.” P60. She knows what’s going on between John and Abigail and believes that Abigail doesn’t understand that John and Elizabeth have made a lifelong promise, being their marriage. One of Abigail’s actions consisted of trying to force Elizabeth away from John so she could have him to herself, this was her dream. Even john had stated in the court room “She thinks to dance with me on my wife’s grave!” P98. Abigail doesn’t understand the consequences of being with john, but john does and he stupidly repeats his own actions, ‘adultery’. John went to the court to try and protect his wife and not get Abigail into trouble but unfortunately he was found out about his little ‘thing’ with Abigail only from him confessing when he says, “It is a whore!” P97, no one understands till he states “I have known her, sir. I have known her.” P97. Only this has been provoked from when John and Elizabeth both were interviewed at home and he forgot the Ten Commandments, the missing one is adultery. Which is a bit ironic because of that which he has committed it. In the court Danforth and Hathorne have separated themselves from the society due to the amount of power and authority that they control. They are able to run the town, but there is no one that is able to control their actions. The town has been sucked so far into believing that there are devils and witches everywhere the township starts to go crazy with belief. Danforth in a way is unable to control all of what he has and just keeps going, for example when Hale is playing with Proctor and makes him go crazy, Giles tries to calm him down and says “Say nothin’ more, John. He’s only playin’ you! He means to hang us all!” P89. Not knowing it Danforth is running this town into the ground, he sends out another pardon for seven when twelve have already been executed for exactly the same punishment. Danforth is to some extent on a killing rampage. Killing for no reason. Towards the end of the devastation hale realises what’s going on, he says “I come to do the Devil’s work. I come to counsel Christians they should believe themselves. There is blood on my head!” P114. Hale is successful in fitting back in with the crowd, he tries to undo what has been done and helps John Proctor, standing by him and stating to everyone in the courtroom “Now let me instruct you. We cannot look to superstition in this. The devil is precise; the marks of his presence are definite as stone, and I must tell you all that I shall not proceed unless you are prepared to believe me if I should find no bruise of hell upon her.” P41. Unfortunately for his own bad doing Danforth keeps on pushing himself further and further from the society, until he has completely alienated himself from the town and everyone in it. Words that cause this are as simple as “Hang them high over the town! Who weeps for these, weeps for corruption!” P125. Another man within the town of Salem that shows another form of belonging is Parris, but it’s not belonging to anyone or anything. He belongs to nothing, he doesn’t belong. He doesn’t care about anybody but himself. For example when he is found out about talking to the wrong crowd the only thing important to him he says is “They will howl me out of Salem for such corruption in my house.” P22. Another example is when he cries “There is danger for me.” P112. This just shows how desperate he is to keep his good reputation and not get into what’s going on. This isn’t good for him it’s just making it worse and pushing him away and away from everyone. One supporting text that is a good example of belonging is the three poems by Oodgeroo called, poem one ‘We Are Going”, poem two ‘Then and Now’ and poem three ‘Last of His Tribe’. In this case the theme belonging fits into place where the aboriginals are the belonged but made to feel as they don’t belong. When she states in poem one “We are the strangers here now, but the white tribe are the strangers.” The aboriginal people are supposed to be the owners of the land and the white people have come and taken over as if it was their land. The white people have come and invaded their land but to them they think they are doing a favour helping them back onto their feet. In poem three they have stated “Isn’t she lucky to have a good job!” All three of her poems are written in English dialect till this one line, showing that these words that are said aren’t normal words. They don’t belong. This is a very powerful line in the poem it really shows that the white people just aren’t suppose to be there, the aboriginals hate it. Her final poem is being spoken in first person to try and give a view of how a single aboriginal thinks about the whole invasion. Imagine being the last human on the planet, how alienated would you feel. Well this is how the aboriginal in poem three feels, he stated that he felt like a “Displaced person in your own country.” This sentence is exactly what Oodgeroo goes on about throughout all of her poems, that they do not belong in their own country. He also stated that it was like being the “Last of your tribe”, nothing to live for, shut out from their own home. Another supporting text that is a fine example of belonging is E.T. the movie. In this case it is the little alien that doesn’t belong on Earth. There was one scene in particular were no one said anything but it had a great in pact in showing that he didn’t belong. It was from a very quiet scene, suddenly there were loud noises and people taking pictures of foot prints, all different kinds of strange pieces of instruments placed everywhere. The camera didn’t show any faces only close ups of people’s bodies. Then it suddenly went to a quiet scene. These were the same people who were chasing him in the beginning, this is showing that something strange is around and it doesn’t belong because it’s different. Another fine example in E.T. of ‘not belonging’ is over multiple scenes. When he arrives the dead plant livens up and the movie becomes slightly brighter. When he becomes home sick everything starts to die within the house and the colours go darker. A quote that supports this is when the brother says to Elliott that “he doesn’t look too good anymore”, Elliott is frustrated with this and his brother replies again, “Really. I think he’s getting sick.” This shows that he can see that E.T. doesn’t belong and needs to go home otherwise he will die. ‘The Crucible’ and the two chosen supporting texts needed to be able to justify why they are suitable for the theme belonging. They were very affective, as they were able to show through different visual techniques, people’s actions, different scenes, feelings and colours that they are appropriate for showing that we can belong to something or even not belong to anything.