HSC-style question
You have been invited to write an article for a teenage magazine called Youth and Belonging.
In your article, analyse the ways in which belonging is represented in the texts you have studied.
Texts: The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan and 'Welcome Stranger' by Stephanie Dowrick
Introduction
A powerful sense of belonging is closely tied to the way in which people see themselves in their society. This is particularly the case for youth of today. ‘Youth and Belonging’ investigates how young people learn to belong in families and peer groups from their parents and the community they live in and the society they are a part of. The magazine considers how the relationships young people form with adults becomes important for their development of self esteem, self confidence and self awareness. The impact on youth of migration and mother daughter relationships in cross-cultural families is explored in Amy Tan’s ‘The Joy Luck Club’. Stephanie Dowrick’s opinion piece from the Good Weekend titled ‘Welcome Stranger’, argues that teaching our children to value ‘including’ others develops a sense of well being and strength of character.
First body paragraph
Topic sentence
As portrayed in the beginning of ‘Voices from the Wall’, Lena’s imagination as a young girl affects her perception of the world and her culture, preventing her from connecting with her Chinese heritage.
Main points
- Lena interprets what she is told about her family into horrible images of death and destruction, demonstrating her mistrust of her own culture.
- She perceives the beggar sentenced to death by her great-grandfather through images of pain and suffering.
- Lena thinks that it does matter to ‘know what is the worst possible thing that could happen to you’ as this is the only way to avoid its affect.
- The horrible things Lena’s sees with her Chinese eyes shows the difference between Chinese girls and Caucasian girls, saying that she saw things that they did not, emphasising her isolation from the dominant American culture.
Key quotes
‘Sword was cutting me down’, ‘cleaver to chop up his bones’
‘unspeakable terrors’ that ‘chased’ Lena’s mother
‘lightning striking down little children’, ‘squashing a beetle with the face of a child’,
‘dangerous monkey rings’, ‘tether balls splashing a girl’s head in front of laughing girls in a playground’
‘Knowing the worst possible thing that could happen to you’
Second body paragraph
Topic sentence
The composer illustrates through visual images of characters how perceptions of physical appearances can prevent meaningful belonging, especially for youth.
Main points
- Description of Lena’s appearance indicates her half Chinese and half Irish heritage - shows that she finds it difficult to belong to both cultures
- She identifies her eyes as being from her mother, with no eyelids, showing how she longed for rounder eyes, like other Caucasians.
- Lena compares her eyes to her mother’s in a photo taken on her wedding day.
- Lena’s mother is declared a Displaced Person, the authorities not knowing how to categorise her on her release from Angel Island Immigration Station as they did not have a category for Chinese wife of a Caucasian person.
- Her father innocently changes the identity of her mother, incorrectly writing her name and year of birth.
- The photo also shows her mother’s displacement through the wedding dress and Westernized jacket she is wearing.
- Father misinterprets Lena’s mother’s startled look in the photograph as being due to her confusion about the word ‘cheese’ said by her father when the photo was taken.
- Lena suggests that her mother continued to look ‘waiting for something to happen’, only later she lost the ‘struggle to keep her eyes open’.
Key quotes
‘smooth as beach pebbles’, ‘faded in the sun’
Third body paragraph
Topic sentence
The composer uses the word ‘includer’ to establish the significance of helping others, especially youth, to belong in situations that are foreign to them.
Main points
- That including others has a profound effect on an individual’s well being and self esteem.
- Going out of your way to include others is just as important as being included.
- Teaching our children to be conscious of including others affects the way they see the world as they grow up – as either friendly or hostile.
- Actively including others improves a person’s social and personal confidence
Key quotes
‘includer’
‘vital for our own emotional health’
‘child alone in the playground’, ‘school girl being exiled’
‘sharer at Pre School’
‘disastrously’, ‘hurtful power plays’
‘intrinsically self-centred’
‘Great for them. Great for ourselves’
Conclusion
‘Youth and Belonging’ addresses how perceptions of the world have a profound affect on the way a young person identifies themselves, other people and the society they live in. For young people these perceptions are formed in childhood and are often established through family members and other adults. ‘The Joy Luck Club’ explores the valuable role culture plays in determining an individual’s sense of self and self awareness. Through establishing the importance of ‘including’ others in ‘Welcome Stranger’, the composer educates the responder on the significance of making others feel safe, especially during childhood, in order to assist their sense of belonging and feeling of well being in society.
Body paragraphs
As portrayed in the beginning of Voices from the Wall, Lena’s imagination as a young girl affects her perception of the world and her culture, preventing her from connecting with her Chinese heritage. Lena understands what she is told about her Chinese family through horrific images of murder – ‘Sword was cutting me down’, ‘cleaver to chop up his bones’ - demonstrating her mistrust of her own culture. She has an overactive imagination; she sees the worst in things, something she gets from her mother. Her mother interprets her daughter’s morbid thoughts as representing American culture; the morbid aspects of the culture she does not understand, although they are shared with Chinese culture. Lena perceives the beggar sentenced to death by her great-grandfather through images of pain and suffering - in this case through death. Her understanding of belonging goes beyond living - even through death one cannot escape pain and a harrowing sense of belonging. Lena thinks that it does matter to ‘know what is the worst possible thing that could happen to you’ as this is the only way to avoid its affect. ‘Knowing the worst possible thing that could happen to you’ becomes a metaphor for how people separate themselves from their own spirit and from their society. She thinks that these unspeakable things are what eat away at people from the inside. It’s these types of secrets that found their way to the ‘dark corner’ of her mother’s mind. She associates these thoughts are ‘devouring’ her mother until she became a ghost. As a young girl, Lena connects these horrible events in her mother’s life to a separation from the self and culture, obscuring her comprehension of meaningful belonging.
The composer illustrates through visual images of characters how perceptions of physical appearances can prevent meaningful belonging, especially for youth. The description of Lena’s appearance indicates her half Chinese and half Irish heritage, highlighting the difficulty Lena experiences belonging to both cultures. The composer uses similes to describe Lena’s ‘smooth as beach pebbles’ cheeks and her ‘faded in the sun’ skin. Lena’s eyes are from her mother, with no eyelids, emphasising how she longed for rounder eyes, like other Caucasians. This is shown through a visual image of her pushing her eyes in on the sides attempting to look Caucasian, although she seemed odd as her father asked her why she looked scared. The comparison of a photo of Lena and her mother with the same startled look connects the mother and daughter. The visual image of the photo helps the responder to understand Lena’s mother’s struggle to belong as she was declared a Displaced Person. The authorities did not know how to categorise her on her release from Angel Island Immigration Station as they did not have a category for Chinese wife of a Caucasian person. The composer uses an anecdote from Lena’s father to show that her mother lost her tiger spirit. Her father innocently changes the identity of her mother, incorrectly writing her name and year of birth. Her mother lost her name and became a ‘dragon’ instead of a ‘tiger’. The dress her mother is wearing in the photo further develops her mother’s displacement. She is wearing a traditional Chinese dress, a wedding gift form Lena’s father, with a ‘Westernized suit jacket’ covering up her heritage. The jacket looks awkward on her ‘small body’. Lena interprets the image of her mother as showing that she was ‘neither coming from nor going to someplace,’ an unusual thought considering it was her wedding day. Lena’s father misinterprets Lena’s mother’s startled look in the photograph as being due to her confusion about the word ‘cheese’ said by her father when the photo was taken. Lena suggests that her mother continued to look like she was ‘waiting for something to happen’. Later her mother lost the ‘struggle to keep her eyes open’, giving up hope of belonging comfortably in her new environment.
The composer uses the word ‘includer’ to establish the significance of helping others, especially youth, to belong in situations that are foreign to them. She emphasises ‘vital’ in ‘vital for our own emotional health’ to demonstrate that a sense of belonging through feeling included by others has a positive impact on our emotional well being. The composer feels we spend more time worrying about how we could be left out rather than how we can include others. She uses emotive words such as ‘disastrously’, ‘hurtful power plays’ to show that shunning is often used to create a sense of belonging, but at the ‘expense of others’. The composer is critical of this form of belonging as she states that it is ‘intrinsically self-centred’ and demonstrates ‘grave misunderstanding of what personal power’ represents. The composer outlines through the ages how we can be includers – a sharer at preschool, adults looking out for a person, colleagues being sensitive to a newcomer. However establishing the importance of ‘including’ others in childhood can have a powerful affect on how people perceive the world in adulthood. Teaching our children to be conscious of including others affects the way they see the world as they grow up – as either friendly or hostile. Actively including others improves a person’s social and personal confidence. In addition, the composer develops the idea that including others is relevant to all of us through imagery of common ways people exclude others such as the ‘child alone in the playground’ and the ‘school girl being exiled’ in the playground. Developing a positive sense of belonging therefore begins at an early age.
Activity
If you have studied The Joy Luck Club, use the modelled response as a guide to write a plan for the next three body paragraphs. On a separate piece of paper, write the paragraphs in full, using your notes.
Fourth body paragraph
Topic sentence
Main points:
Key quotes:
Fifth body paragraph
Topic sentence
Main points:
Key quotes:
Sixth body paragraph
Topic sentence
Main points:
Key quotes:
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