Belonging: Family and Rabbit Proof Fence
Belonging is a way of having acceptance, security, fulfilment and a connection in association to people, places, groups, communities, and the world itself. There are different notions of belonging, however, they are recognising in cultural, historical, personal and social contexts.
New experiences and changes in relationships affect our sense of belonging, in which explored through family relationships, connections with land, and into a new society world. These themes can be seen in Alice Pung’s Asian-Australian memoir ‘Unpolished Gem’ and the film ‘Rabbit Proof Fence’ directed by Philip Noyce. Another related film ‘The Blind Side’ written and directed by John Lee Hancock, which also explores the same concept of belonging.
The novel ‘Unpolished Gem’ and two films ‘Rabbit Proof Fence’ and ‘The Blind Side’ are stories of telling ones journey to find a sense of belonging. The main character Alice Pung in Unpolished Gem narrates her childhood and adolescence through the use of anecdotes, reflections and re-told memories. Just as Alice Pung, three young half-caste Aboriginal girls, Molly, Daisy and Gracie explore the difficulties, challenges experienced and success on their journey across the vast and lonely Australian Outback. And the main character Michael Oher in the film ‘The Blind Side’ also explores the difficulties and challenges in life as he grows up experiencing new things into a new society.
To begin with, the sense of belonging arises from a family Relationship. Alice Pung recounts a series of memories from her childhood and adolescence as she grows up Asian-Australian straddling two worlds and about her parents and extended family, who once lived in Cambodia but the harsh treatments they’ve been experience in Cambodia forced them to migrate to Australia. Alice recounted her memories in first person, ‘We begin our story in a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, in a market swarming with fat pigs and thin people’. This shows that it is the author’s personal
New experiences and changes in relationships affect our sense of belonging, in which explored through family relationships, connections with land, and into a new society world. These themes can be seen in Alice Pung’s Asian-Australian memoir ‘Unpolished Gem’ and the film ‘Rabbit Proof Fence’ directed by Philip Noyce. Another related film ‘The Blind Side’ written and directed by John Lee Hancock, which also explores the same concept of belonging.
The novel ‘Unpolished Gem’ and two films ‘Rabbit Proof Fence’ and ‘The Blind Side’ are stories of telling ones journey to find a sense of belonging. The main character Alice Pung in Unpolished Gem narrates her childhood and adolescence through the use of anecdotes, reflections and re-told memories. Just as Alice Pung, three young half-caste Aboriginal girls, Molly, Daisy and Gracie explore the difficulties, challenges experienced and success on their journey across the vast and lonely Australian Outback. And the main character Michael Oher in the film ‘The Blind Side’ also explores the difficulties and challenges in life as he grows up experiencing new things into a new society.
To begin with, the sense of belonging arises from a family Relationship. Alice Pung recounts a series of memories from her childhood and adolescence as she grows up Asian-Australian straddling two worlds and about her parents and extended family, who once lived in Cambodia but the harsh treatments they’ve been experience in Cambodia forced them to migrate to Australia. Alice recounted her memories in first person, ‘We begin our story in a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, in a market swarming with fat pigs and thin people’. This shows that it is the author’s personal