Expository Essay: Belonging

Hello, this is my first ever attempt at a full expository essay. The other ones I have written are short and act more as an exercise than anything really. I have written this in Yr 10 today, so that is, 14th November 2013.

This expository essay is my opinion of belonging based on the prompt 'Our sense of belonging is shaped by our surroundings.'

This essay was not an assignment, it was revision for my upcoming English exam which I have to write an expository essay and text response. However, my teacher did say it was an "Excellent response to prompt".

Texts used: Redfern Now (documentary), The Arrival by Shaun Tan (graphic novel), and The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan (short film).

I really enjoyed watching The Lost Thing and reading The Arrival by Shaun Tan; my teacher thinks he's a genius.

Word count: 900-950

'Our sense of belonging is shaped by our surroundings.'

According to Encarta Dictionaries, the definition of ‘belonging’ is the ‘state of feeling home; it is the state of being accepted and comfortable in a place or social group’. Therefore, an individual’s sense of belonging is influenced by our environment. The environment can refer to our peers and the physical surroundings around us. Some factors such as language and relations within a community can determine one’s state of belonging socially and other factors such as the physical appearance of the location can influence one’s connection towards a place depending on an individual's familiarity of the environment. These aspects of belonging can especially dictate the way an individual connects with its location and the people in it. 

The way a person communicates with others within their neighbourhood can increase their likelihood of belonging to social group or community. Not being able to understand the language in which your neighbourhood speak can dissuade one from connecting to the community as the individual is unable to connect through communication and understanding of others. Therefore, language can act as a barrier towards one’s path to belonging. This statement holds true in circumstances where migration is an option for a way out of tough situations. As such the graphic novel, The Arrival, by Shaun Tan which details the journey of a man who migrates to a foreign city and finds difficulty in fitting into society, demonstrates this situation impeccably as the main character is exposed to a different community and different speech. The main character was unable to fit in his new hometown as he was unable to speak their language or identify the bizarre symbols and written language of the foreign city. Due to the inability of speech, the main character was unable to find his accommodation or communicate with his fellow townspeople. Considering this, language can indeed barricade an individual from achieving a full sense of belonging within a place.                                                                                                                           

Feeling out-of-place can refer to the physical surroundings of a person. Factors that can influence a person to feel improper within an environment may be the way of life of the community. As it is, the way of life of a community is reflected within its art and architecture of their structures and establishments, including buildings and transportation. As demonstrated in The Arrival, the protagonist was exposed to a new way-of-life reflected in the foreign town he’d arrived at. The protagonist encounters unfamiliar establishments as bizarre as two sky-high statues of liberty and flying boats as a way of transportation. As a result of the unfamiliarity of his environment, the protagonist is confronted with difficulty in finding employment and his accommodation around the town. Additionally, social class can have a say in the way a person connects with its environment. For instance, in Ep. 6 Stand Up from Redfern Now, which details the story of a young Aboriginal boy, Joel, who attends a prestigious school in Australia and is confronted with issues relating to his identity that can potentially get him expelled from the school, clearly portrays how the physical appearance of a place can determine one’s belonging. In special circumstances such as the situation in which Joel’s parents find themselves in a meeting with the school principle portrays this statement as, being lowly Aboriginal citizens, contrasts significantly to the grandeur of the school’s architecture, thus creating unease from a lack of belonging to a place. Hence, the details of a location can indeed shape one’s sense of relation to a community depending on the familiarity of the surrounding or one’s social class.

Most importantly, one’s acceptance to a place or social group depends on the relation to the people an individual possesses within an environment. It is impossible to achieve a full state of belonging without ties within a community. Such ties come in the form of relationships with other people. Considering The Arrival, the central character manages to converse with other townspeople who happen to be migrants and share past experiences and their reason for migration. Although the central character does not re-acquaint with his fellow townspeople later in the graphic novel, he regains a sense of companionship for the first time in the new city. The central character recovers a full sense of fellowship when he and his family reunite. Furthermore, the generalisation of acceptance regarded within this passage is also represented in Shaun Tan’s short film, The Lost Thing, which narrates the journey a young boy undertakes to return his peculiar companion, the Lost Thing, to its rightful habitat. The Lost Thing retains a sense of acceptance when it returns to its proper environment along with its relatives and companions, in contrast to when it was ‘lost’ in the town with no relation to anyone other than the protagonist. With all this in mind, it is clear that one will only truly belong with relational ties within a community.

Ultimately, our sense of belonging is shaped by our surroundings. Our surrounding consists of the physical environment and the social environment of the community. The physical environment of a location can interfere with one’s sense of belonging depending on the individual’s familiarity of the infrastructure and establishments of a place and the social environment of a location consists of the language of the people. Language is an important determinant for an individual’s level of connection as the enables one to socialise with people and create relationships with them, thus creating a link to society. However, the most significant factor that contributes greatly to one’s connection to an environment is through their social ties with the citizens of society. Only through close relations with people one is truly able to connect to a place.