Area of Study Belonging

Area of Study: Belonging
Belonging can be self-fulfilling and self-destructive. Explain the relevance of this statement with close reference to your prescribed text and one related text of your own choosing.

Human beings desire to belong in order to feel accepted and maintain a sense of identity. However this desire can cause negative ramifications on the individual if it is not fulfilled. The idea of belonging being both self-fulfilling and self-destructive is explored in the prescribed memoir ‘Romulus My Father’ by Raimond Gaita and the film ‘Blue Jasmine’ directed by Woody Allen. In both these texts characters are seen to belong to place and therefore are self-fulfilled but this belonging becomes self-destructive when they are unable to continue to belong to that place.

When an individual is unable to belong they become self-destructive. The idea of belonging is explored in the memoir ‘Romulus My Father’ written by Raimond Gaita. In the memoir the character of Christina is seen to not be accepted by those around her due to her mental illness which makes her unable to care for her children. “She was incapable to care for me, neglecting my primary needs of feeding and bathing” shows through the internal focalisation and characterisation that Christina didn’t fulfil her duties as a mother. This may be due to fact that Christina suffered from post-natal depression which can be seen as a self-destructive barrier for her to connect with her children and husband which therefore hinders her from becoming self-fulfilled. In the memoir the idea of Christina having lavish taste is explored through her constantly spending money which results in her being unable to belong to any one place as she is constantly in debt due to spending the rent money. Through the exploration of her depression in the memoir, the responder can see that Christina desires to belong in order to be self-fulfilled but she is unable to do so due to her illness which is a self-destructive...