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The famed American psychologist William Glasser once wrote that “we are driven by three genetic needs: survival, love and belonging”. Glasser speaks philosophically of man’s innate need to belong. Indeed, as humans, we feel more comfortable, stable and optimistic when we have that security; the security that comes from belonging to a wider group of people, defined by many parameters such as race, religion or family. Arguably “belonging involves a character’s relationship with people, places, groups and events” which perpetuates a sense of belonging which pervades humans innermost desires. Emily Dickinson’s two poems “I died for beauty but was scarce” and “I had been hungry all the years” attempts to articulate this intrinsic aspiration of belonging, albeit, in an ambivalent fashion. Mirroring Dickinson, the 2002 film “Australian Rules” directed by Paul Goldman and the picture book “The Islander” written by Armin Greder explore the involvement of the characters and their relationships with other people, places, groups and event.
Pervading Dickinson’s poetry is a form of belonging which intrinsically links the relationship an individual has with their society, and the sense that to belong to ones society, one must forego their own sense of self. In the surreal poem “I died for beauty but was scarce”, the ideas of freedom and captivity are explored in relation to mankind and nature. This poem is essentially romantic; identifying what is true in life with its beauties, exploring the ideas of truth and beauty that John Keats discussed. Through the repetition of “beauty” and “truth” in the first two stanzas Dickinson explores whether either death or nature provides belonging. The literary allusion “in an adjoining room” ironically pictures beauty and truth together in heaven. The gothic imagery is almost haunting as these deceased characters express their failure to belong amidst their failed quest. Use of dialogue “and I for truth” personifies the search for meaning in society. In stanza three, “until the moss had reached our lips”, there is the idea that we live in the natural world but not truly belonging in it. This is the paradoxical juxtaposition that Dickinson reaches as decay of life and mankind’s reactions are all usurped by natural forces.
Relationships between parents and children are fundamental both to our lives and to comprehending the meaning of human experiences. Like Dickinson, ideas of freedom and captivity are conveyed in Goldman’s “Australian Rules” through a young European boy “Blackie” immovable between the white and black community. He deals with the hidden disgraceful secrets of racism and domestic violence portrayed through the characterisation of Bob Black. The use of the last name Black is ironic as his father despises the black aboriginal “mission” demonstrating his failure to belong to the entire town community. His father strives to belong in the white community involving poverty, drinking at the pub, hasty criticism toward the blacks and being involved with the local AFL.
Human interaction and the development of relationships are essential to produce personal feelings of entirety and to aid one’s self in defining identity to feel completely fulfilled.The poem “I had been hungry all the years” explores the ideas of abjuration and desire as an element of self and is forfeited by membership to various social institutions. The repetition of “I” and hunger” show the physical need to belong, seen in the title “I had been hungry all the years”. The metaphor of the window reveals the persona’s isolation and alienation from other people. She was an observer of belonging which is emphasised as we learn that “the birds and I had often shared in nature’s dining room”. This metaphor explores the displacement in nature showing the persona, natural and beautiful, suffering a strange remoteness. Paradoxically, “So I found that hunger was a way of persons outside windows, the entering takes away” the persona, even when accepted feels segregated from society as belonging makes them feel “ill and odd”. Correspondingly Goldman deals with the concept of not belonging which is explored through the characterisation of Blackie. Blackie deals with alienation and seclusion when found trapped between his relationship with an aboriginal girl, Clarence, and the expectations of his father “you will never see that black bitch again”. The idea of belonging is complex, ambiguous and contains difficulties according Goldman and Dickinson.
Similarly The Islander explores the ideas and concepts of not belonging through its language use in relation with associated images. Each image unifies the text in order to emphasize the concept of not belonging. The story begins with; “One morning, the people of the island found a man on the beach, he wasn’t like them.” The direct use of ‘wasn’t like them’ immediately initiates the concept of alienation between the people of the island and the foreign man. In conjunction with the text, the imagery complements it, a lone man, sketched naked in the corner of a large white page. The image and its connotations naturally comment on alienation, perpetuating the central concern of the text.
In contrast to the voice of the narrator, the island people sound ignorant, highlighting their absence of knowledge about action in an uncertain circumstance, saying “I am sure he wouldn’t like it here, so far away from his own kind.” The use of ‘own kind’ substantiates the concept of belonging, referring to a distant place or individual not belonging to them. The text again is complemented with the powerful use of visual imagery, to appraise the idea of contrast, creating larger, more pronounced figures in cohesion with the ‘stranger’.
The Island establishes its own connotations and is defined as; any piece of land isolated from other significant landmasses by water, thus complementing the concept of not belonging to anything in its wake. An island is isolated, alienated and alone, metaphorically strengthening the complex nature of the ‘stranger’, who embodies these exact qualities.
Emily Dickinson, Paul Goldman and Armin Greder communicate the idea of belonging through characterisation, imagery and literary techniques. Dickinson invites us to deal with ambiguity and resist the impulse to unify her meaning of simple formulas. Her unique cryptic style engages the reader exploring the effect nature has upon humankind. Greder investigates belonging, in a sophisticated manner as it not only features symbolic imagery in conjunction with language techniques; it embodies the clauses in a characters experience of not belonging.
