Understanding nourishes belonging…a lack of understanding prevents it; demonstrate how your prescribed text and one other related material represents this interpretation of belonging.
A sense of belonging emerges from the connections people make within their world. The poem ´Ancestors´ shows Peter skrzynecki’s failure to comprehend his cultural identity creating a barrier to belonging. In order to identify with a particular heritage, one essentially must grasp a personal understanding of this way of life and commit to it. Learning to accept ourselves is a starter point to embracing ones family and thus induces us to belong to our heritage. Demonstrated through a young Chinese boy’s interactions with his family in ´The peasant prince´ by Li Cuxin it is shown that the boys ability to belong is magnified through his recognition and knowledge of his communal status and thus life.
Neglecting the commitment of one’s cultural heritage sacrifices one’s ability to accept themselves and thus belong in themselves. A measure to how one perceives the world can be related to how one see’s themself. The persona in ´Ancestors´ experiences utter confusion as he has no capacity to communicate with his ancestors. He fails to establish a connection to his heritage, limiting his ability to understand them. The forceful, interrogating tone of the poem proves this lack of identification as five out of the seven stanza’s end in a question. Connotations such as ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘why’ ‘where’ ‘how’, emphasise the absence of knowledge and irritation this person is feeling. He is actively pursuing his misconception towards his past however his anxiety is stopping him from being able to do this. He questions “what secrets do they whisper into the darkness” but then later demands “Why do they never speak” this train of thought where one question immediately sprouts a new uncertainty highlights this disconnection between the persona and their heritage, inhibiting him from...