No Place Like Home

The Newspaper article, No Place Like Home, written by the novelist, Kathryn Heyman, expresses to her audience the experiences she felt in relation to her not belonging and belonging throughout her life and adventures. Heyman uses the connections of people and places to account this feeling, thus using notions and connections that take place through a sense of nationalism and relationships, in association to a cultural and social context. The article surrounds the contrast between different continents hence the individual experiences of the narrator differ.

At the beginning of her journey, Heyman appears as though she doesn’t belong to the different land and way of life in the UK. She felt alienated from the land, weather and climate, while mentioning that she was ‘thrown by my sense of otherness, and disconnection from the landscape’ and when she arrived ‘it was cold, damp, miserable’. She continues to give details about how ‘the deep loneliness of this cold, new place ploughed away’ at her, concerning the isolation from her home country, Australia, of a humid, warm climate. Heyman furthered worried about the troubles of making friends and the unfamiliar faces around her. She mentions that she had ‘no means of making friends’ and that the only sustained and friendly object close to her was a ‘gum leaf’, from a tree that is native to her homeland, Australia.

On Heymans first night in Glasgow, she came across a barman, who recognized her accent and began telling stories of the ‘best three years of me life’. During her time she ran into many of the ‘returnees’ who backpacked around Australia. The connections she made with these various people, felt like she belonged, as they had common experiences and explored their sense of identity together. Later on, Kathryn moved to Scotland with her husband mentioning that it was easier to settle in as she had ‘become used to the cold, to the humour.’ Finally, Kathryn felt a true belonging as she wasn’t alone anymore,