This essay examines the theme of belonging in Peter Skrzynecki's poems "Jeogla" and "Crossing the Red Sea," and the 2002 film Rabbit-Proof Fence. Drawing on concepts of memory, cultural identity, and displacement, the essay argues that belonging is rooted in family, place, and community — and that the longing for such belonging can motivate extraordinary action. The analysis traces how characters in Rabbit-Proof Fence navigate belonging through language, costume, and personal commitment, while Skrzynecki's poetry captures the emotional complexity of immigrant experience and nostalgic attachment to places that no longer exist.
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The paper effectively uses comparative textual analysis, placing a literary work and a film in dialogue to develop a shared thematic argument. By identifying parallel images — the half-caste children who are "neither white nor colored" alongside migrants who are "neither master nor slave" — the student demonstrates how close reading of specific language choices can reveal deeper thematic connections across different media.
The essay opens with a theoretical framing of belonging, moves into character-level analysis of Rabbit-Proof Fence, then examines cinematic choices (language and costume), before turning to Skrzynecki's two poems in sequence. A brief comparative conclusion ties the texts together under the essay's central claim. This structure moves logically from the concrete (character behavior) to the abstract (poetic imagery and theme).
Belonging is a powerful motivator and can give people the strength to accomplish seemingly impossible tasks. The sense of belonging derives from the warmth, love, and protection of one's family or a place to which one feels attached. We belong to our communities by virtue of memory and longstanding participation in the life of a place or a group of people (Ilcan 2002). As Peter Skrzynecki's poetry so effectively demonstrates, we can even belong to places that no longer exist, and we can cherish a sense of belonging for a community that has changed radically or even ceased to be. The film Rabbit-Proof Fence also illustrates the power of belonging in the family and culture of origin, even when one's culture is treated as alien and unwanted by the dominant population (Read 2000). The following discussion explores some of the ways in which belonging is played out in the poems "Jeogla" and "Crossing the Red Sea," and in Rabbit-Proof Fence.
Molly's character in Rabbit-Proof Fence deals most closely and consciously with belonging. From the opening scenes of the film, she receives the clearest signals about what it means to belong to her home culture. She is the one who sights the hunted lizard; she is the one whose spirit bird appears in the sky, pointed out by her mother; and she is the one for whom a marriage has already been arranged that will further cement her place in the Jigalong community.
Gracie's character deals with belonging in somewhat more conflicted ways. She is the last of the girls to fully commit to the idea of escaping from the Moore River settlement. Because the journey does not return her to her own mother, Gracie is uncertain whether she truly belongs with Molly and Daisy, and so she is not as fully committed to going home to Jigalong.
In general, Skrzynecki's poetry is more nuanced and complex in its treatment of belonging than Rabbit-Proof Fence. The sad epilogue in which we learn that even Molly's children are taken from her shows that returning home is not always the end of the story of displacement. Likewise, crossing to the other side of the Red Sea does not mean that the migrants have arrived in a land of milk and honey, nor does it mean that time will stand still and preserve the places we once loved. The sense of longing is an essential part of belonging — we long for the experience of being our most natural, authentic selves in community.
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