Two Brothers Essay

Hannie Rayson explores the decisions and circumstances around belonging in her play ‘Two Brothers’. Belonging can refer to a community, a country or a group of friends. However belonging can sometimes not be the greatest thing for a person. Some people find it difficult to belong to someone if they don’t fully like how they have to act around that group. However at the same time someone can enjoy belonging to someone and not being an outcast. This is demonstrated in Two Brothers and relates to key issues in society, either in the past or the present. Hazem Al Ayad is seen as an outcast and someone no one wants around them, his plight in the play is a link to current refugees struggling to find their place in this world. Tom’s decision to choose between his key ideas and beliefs is a connection to Jewish people during the Holocaust. Finally Lachlan’s unwillingness to come clean about what happened in fear of persecution is relatable to society’s unwillingness to speak out against the dictators and governments who make countries so bad people have to flee them.

Hazem Al Ayad is forced to drop his identity as soon as he leaves his home country of Iraq. When he left he didn’t belong anywhere. ‘I am unwelcome in every country on this earth, when I think that people in this country want my family to drown, rather than step foot on this shore, then I find it hard not to believe in evil.’ Hazem is led to a world of injustices because his home country is so bad. Current day refugees face the same problem as Hazem did in Two Brothers. They are forced out of their own country due to reasons that people wish were gone from society such as wars and power hungry dictators. As soon as they board that boat to Australia they are leaving their identity behind and they are then put into detention centres.

Tom is faced with his own identity crisis when he is offered the opportunity to make a worldwide difference in exchange for keeping his mouth shut and let his brother become