Not_Belonging

introduction The idea of belonging is an important and fundamental value in our lives. Belonging commonly emerges from experience and notions of identity, relationships, acceptance and understanding. Good morning year 11 My name is Kayla Ryan and am here to talk to you about the concept of not belonging and how Peter Skrynecki demonstrates it in three of his poems that I have chosen to use. I will also talk to you about two other sources I have found that also demonstrates the feeling of not belonging one a song and film clip by American band Blink 182 and the other a well known scene from The Lion King. A sense of belonging is the feeling of being connected and accepted within one's family,friends,groups or even a place, so to feel a sense of not belonging you feel as if you are not connected to something you should or may want to be. You feel alienated and as if your out of place the way a migrant would feel when moving to a new country, feeling alone and lost with no sense of belonging. Body Not belonging is represented in various ways throughout Peter Skrynecki's poems “Migrant Hostel” 'St Pats College" & 'Feliks Skrynecki' Each of the texts has a wide range of ideas on how not belonging is created though personal experiences and notion of identity, relationships, acceptance and understanding. When a group of “new comers” is living among a new society, their sense of belonging will be challenged because of the lack of relationship and understanding of the new place that they have just met. In “Migrant Hostel” it shows us what the migrants will have to face in a new environment they are about to experience. The contrast between the title, Migrant hostel as a accommodation of migrants, and the detached tone in “arrivals of new comers” and “Sudden departures from adjoining blocks”, has expressed out the constantly changing of environment, relationship and identity of the migrant, the uses of word such as “Sudden departures” also give us a sense that the attitude of the migrant is sort of flow through or pass though this particular group and do not have any acceptance to this place (the Hostel). The inquiry of “who would be coming next” shows the uncertain of the people among and a particular isolation. The use of simile In “Nationalities sought each other out instinctively – like a homing pigeon Circling to get its bearing”, this create a sense of the moving migrant is seeking for fellow country members to get support this also represent that they are finding people with same experience which in other sense will have the same degree of belonging to a group. However this also creates a paradox as pigeons represent freedom and lack of restriction where as the migrant in this new environment is restricted to belong. Here we can also find that the sense of belonging is not only base on the experience, but also related to the notion of identity, the migrants “Recognized by accents,” is straightly link up to the people that come from a common heritage, which shares the same identity, however, the place they were, the hostel, did not help them to achieve this point people are physically stayed together but isolated in their mind which is shown by “Partitioned off at night By memories of hunger and hate”, the “hate” is toward their situation, a migrant feels alone at night and start considering about their memories, in the other sense , their feeling of what they actually belong. Moreover, the sense of an “outsider” relative to the place is brought up referring to “A barrier at the main gate”. Here the symbolism and personification is used, the “barrier” is metaphorical to the separation from the society and implying the chance of belong is limited, this is also depicted by the simile “like a finger Pointed in reprimand or shame” which shows how they are not fit in. The pessimistic ending with syntax and enjambment pick up a sense inherit contrast between life, “begun” and death “dying”. Therefore, Migrant Hostel illustrates the migrant has a sense of belonging in a new social context in terms of experience and notion of identity.