Christine_in_Romulus,_My_Father

The experiences significant to Christine’s belonging show that she searches for a place to belong, not realising that it is her perceptions and attitudes and not the place that allows her to belong. This is shown where Christine continuously moves throughout the novel as we see she has that sense of isolation and not belonging from her mental illness. “The reason why the two pounds could not have come at a better time was because he and my mother were threatened with eviction unless they paid their rent arrears. Mitru quarrelled with the land lord who had quarrelled with my mother and abused her.” This quote shows only one instance of the arguments Christine had with various land lords causing her to move. This shows her instability and isolation with her moving around looking for a place to belong but never truly being able to. There is also the conveyance that Christine cannot be accustomed to the land, showing her dislocation. The Red Gum tree Raimond talks of is a symbol of her desolation and oppression and how she, like Romulus cannot be accustomed to the land. “The scraggy red gum delineated against a dark blue back drop of sky.” This desolation is also shown by her attempts of suicide. “In words that were barely comprehensible she said that she loved me and wanted to say goodbye, that she would fall asleep and then die” shortly followed by her being uncommunicative and going missing that night and returning the next morning injured and exhibiting strange behaviour. Christine cannot adapt to her surroundings and so this causes part of her mental instability and with not being able to become accustomed, sadly ends in her suicide. “A troubled city girl from Central Europe, she could not settle in a dilapidated farmhouse in a landscape that highlighted her isolation. She longed for company.” This shows that Christine was accustomed to her cultural, Central European identity, obviously a very social life with many people whom she felt she belonged with as it was where she most fit in. In the Australian landscape however, she feels as it is not where she belongs and therefore her search for a place where she feels she can belong is only rewarded with dislocation and displacement as she cannot come to be accustomed with the dominant culture of the Australian people and the new Australian landscape.