People’s perspective or how they look at things change because of their culture, growing up and maturity. Growing up is a process that starts when you are born and ends when you discover yourself and learn to like what you have become. For some people, growing up is not easy.
“Looking For Alibrandi” is a novel by Melina Marchetta that displays ones inner struggle with their own identity. Josephine Alibrandi is a 17 year-old arrogant, immature individual who lives with her mother. Like many other teens, Josephine has to cope with family relationships, peer pressure, culture, religion, love, sexuality and illegitimacy. Josephine’s perspective on life and her attitude towards the influences in her life changes throughout the novel. However, by the end of the novel she realised who she is and she is proud of it.
The poem “My Father Began as a God” by Ian Mudie is about a boy who changes his views on his father as he grows older. As a child, he saw his father as a fearless hero that is able to do anything. However, by the time he was an adolescent, his father had become a “foolish old man”. He was no longer a fearless hero, but a father “with silly and outmoded views of life and modality”. The cause for this change of perspective was puberty. As he grew even older, his perspective changes once again. At the last stage of change in perspective, his father dies.
In Looking For Alibrandi, Josephine gets called a “wog” by Carly Bishop in chapter 8,
“And so do I, you racist pig” “How dare you, you wog”
Although Australia is a multicultural country, Josie called her a racist pig and broke her nose with her textbook. This shows that Josie easily gets offended if anyone discriminates her race. Josie initially feels victimised at school by racial discrimination. This is due to the fact that she goes to a Catholic Anglo-Saxon school for wealthy kids. Josephine reckons that Italians are the best race. She declares with quirky humour that Italians