Year 12 Assessment Task 2: Area of Study- Belonging
“We all strive to belong”
To what extent is this statement true with regard to your SET text and at least ONE related text of your own choosing?
One’s understanding of belonging can broaden their understanding and acceptance of themselves and the world around them. The statement that we all strive to belong is true, however it may take time to belong to a certain person, place, group, community or even the larger world. This issue is explored in Raimond Gaita’s biographical memoir Romulus, My Father and Khaled Hosseini’s confronting novel The Kite Runner. Throughout these texts, the themes of personal relationships, migrant experience and morals and values arise from the concept of …show more content…

Romulus imperatively enforces to Raimond that he “must not lie”. This statement alone describes the characteristics that Raimond received from his father. In contrast to this, Baba tells Amir that “(he) you must never steal,” and that “theft is a sin, and every other sin is just a variation of theft.” The use of truncated sentences again emphasises the importance of these values. Both Gaita and Hosseini delve into the relationships shared between father and son and, focusing on the dependence on one another to achieve a sense of belonging in their child’s life.
In Romulus, My Father, migrant experience is also explored. Raimond Gaita details the event in his life when he moved to Australia. When describing the Australian landscape, Gaita states, “He (Romulus) longed for the generous and soft European foliage”. Through the use of personification, Gaita demonstrates his father’s disconnection from the land, also referring to the fact that most immigrants felt the same way; “in this he was typical of many of the immigrants whose eyes looked directly to the foliage and always turned away offended.” The juxtaposition of binary opposites establishes the difference in landscape and the feelings of disconnection felt by most immigrants. However, Romulus did not want to pass the opportunity he had. This is evident when Gaita is describing how important