Belonging - the Simple Gift’ by Steven Herrick and Ort - the Ugly Duckling’ by Hans Christian Anderson
To belong is to fit in, or to be rightly placed in a specified position or environment. The idea of belonging is a dynamic and an essential aspect of human life which can come through, due to the connections made with the concepts of identity, place, relationships, acceptance and understanding to oneself and other people. These aspects of belonging are demonstrated through the free verse novel, ‘The Simple Gift’ by Steven Herrick, and the fairy tale of ‘The Ugly Duckling’ by Hans Christian Anderson.
In the very early stages of 'The simple gift', Herrick displays sixteen year old, Billy Luckett’s, sense of alienation by using his first person character to highlight social issues such as hostility within his family, leading it to break down, and his feeling of loneliness and worthlessness of identity. This is conveyed in the poem ‘Long lands Road’, where billy’s internal conflict is shown through his un-satisfaction of his original community in which he lived in and was a part of, leaving him disappointed and also a sense of embarrassment towards his identity. He states this clearly with the words, ‘My Street. My Suburb.’, showing terms of ownership of the place in which his identity currently belongs too, but does not like, giving us a sense of in closure and displacement. This continues as he describes his street, as he throws rocks on the roof “of each deadbeat no-hoper shithole lonely downtrodden house in Long lands Road, Nowheresville”.The use of colloquialism of Billy’s vulgar language, further demonstrates Billy’s displacement, dislike and disappointment towards long lands road, symbolising a decaying and depressing environment. Billy then ends up taking control of himself and moving out of home.
Billy then finds himself on a freight train, in search of a new place to go to, to try and gather a feeling of belonging. After travelling “two kilometres down the track”, he finds himself freezing cold. The harshness of the cold on the train indicates billy's
In the very early stages of 'The simple gift', Herrick displays sixteen year old, Billy Luckett’s, sense of alienation by using his first person character to highlight social issues such as hostility within his family, leading it to break down, and his feeling of loneliness and worthlessness of identity. This is conveyed in the poem ‘Long lands Road’, where billy’s internal conflict is shown through his un-satisfaction of his original community in which he lived in and was a part of, leaving him disappointed and also a sense of embarrassment towards his identity. He states this clearly with the words, ‘My Street. My Suburb.’, showing terms of ownership of the place in which his identity currently belongs too, but does not like, giving us a sense of in closure and displacement. This continues as he describes his street, as he throws rocks on the roof “of each deadbeat no-hoper shithole lonely downtrodden house in Long lands Road, Nowheresville”.The use of colloquialism of Billy’s vulgar language, further demonstrates Billy’s displacement, dislike and disappointment towards long lands road, symbolising a decaying and depressing environment. Billy then ends up taking control of himself and moving out of home.
Billy then finds himself on a freight train, in search of a new place to go to, to try and gather a feeling of belonging. After travelling “two kilometres down the track”, he finds himself freezing cold. The harshness of the cold on the train indicates billy's