Belonging is the fundamental nature of humans longing to be confident in social situations and deals with a balance of rejection and acceptance. A true sense of belonging can only be found once you’re on the outside of society. Williams Shakespeare's Play, ‘As You Like It’ (early 1600s) through the character of Rosalind, demonstrates rejection and acceptance as well as individuality similarly to the way Casper David Friedrich has represented this concept of belonging in his painting, ‘Woman before the Rising Sun’ (1818-20).
Rejection is an essential component in the ebb and flow of belonging. After Rosalind’s Father is banished from the court she too is not long after banished by her Uncle Duke Frederick, "...if that thou beest found so near... as twenty miles, thou diest for it" threatening to kill his own niece is a strong and offensive statement alluding to the fact that Rosalind doesn’t belong in the court as he is the ruler of the court and he is exiling her. Additionally stating "thou art thy father’s daughter" shows how Shakespeare is suggesting that Rosalind doesn’t belong in the court because she is her "father’s daughter" and he doesn’t belong to the court himself. Additionally Rosalind and Cousin Celia left the court in stealth on the night of Rosalind’s exile. This proves that the pair doesn’t belong in the court as they left when no one knew of their departure. If they did belong they would have left during the day as though there was nothing to hide. There is evidence in 'Woman before the Rising Sun' of rejection and banishment as a woman is standing alone facing a natural landscape with her back to the audience (society/the court) and is wearing formal garments with a crown suggesting that she once lived in civili...
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...th rejection and acceptance in order to be confident in social situations.
Ultimately one must first be rejected from society to accept one’s self to gain a sense of belonging and therefore be confident in social situations. Casper David Friedrich has demonstrated rejection and acceptance as well as individuality throughout his painting ‘Woman before the Rising Sun’ in a similar way to how Shakespeare has demonstrated belonging in his play ‘As You Like It’. These two texts have clear links that demonstrate a similar concept of belonging which proves that rejection plus acceptance equals social confidence, self-acceptance is belonging to self and being confident in social situations and therefore equals human fulfillment as belonging is the fundamental nature of humans longing to be confident in social situations.
Works Cited
As You Like It, William Shakespeare
In the poems “Feliks Skrzynecki” and “St Patrick’s College”, Peter Skrzynecki explores the relationship between understanding and belonging through his experiences, both with his father and at school. Brandon Sanderson delves into the effects prejudice can have on acceptance in the novel “Mistborn: The Final Empire”. These texts all demonstrate how inclusion can be prevented by a reluctance to accept or engage. Peter feels estranged from his father in “Feliks Skrzynecki” and disconnected with his school in “St Patrick’s College”. The concepts of disconnection and estrangement are further revealed in “Mistborn: The Final Empire”, along with perceptions of exclusion. Collectively, the texts
Ultimately, belonging is not simply a state of security and acceptance, but also involves fear, insecurity, conflict and exclusion. Through Arthur Miller’s exploration of this paradoxical nature of belonging, we see the importance and necessity of belonging to oneself, even if this means exclusion from the community.
To belong is an inanimate desire to be respected and to respect those whom you want to be with through association of similar values. To feel a sense of belonging is to feel loved for our entirety or to be loved due to and aspect of your person that is common with those you who belong as one. An individual has the capacity to belong to people, physical places or ideas. Baz Buhrmann’s film “Strictly Ballroom” explores the concept of belonging, to the subculture of Ballroom dancing, through the non-conformist antagonist Scott Hastings and his inexperienced partner, the daughter of a Spanish migrant family. The Picture Book “The Rabbits” by John Marsden and Shaun Tan, confronts belonging through clashing cultures, disrespect of different beliefs and loss of identity.
"To feel a sense of belonging, you need to accept yourself and be accepted by others."
Identity is 'how you view yourself and your life.'; (p. 12 Knots in a String.) Your identity helps you determine where you think you fit in, in your life. It is 'a rich complexity of images, ideas and associations.';(p. 12 Knots in a String.) It is given that as we go through our lives and encounter different experiences our identity of yourselves and where we belong may change. As this happens we may gain or relinquish new values and from this identity and image our influenced. 'A bad self-image and low self-esteem may form part of identity?but often the cause is not a loss of identity itself so much as a loss of belonging.'; Social psychologists suggest that identity is closely related to our culture. Native people today have been faced with this challenge against their identity as they are increasingly faced with a non-native society. I will prove that the play The Rez Sisters showed this loss of identity and loss of belonging. When a native person leaves the reservation to go and start a new life in a city they are forced to adapt to a lifestyle they are not accustomed to. They do not feel as though they fit in or belong to any particular culture. They are faced with extreme racism and stereotypes from other people in the nonreservational society.
It is said that no man is an island, and no man stands alone. Hence, true human existence can not prevail positively or productively without the dynamics of society. Yet, this concept is very much a double-edged sword . Just as much as man needs to exist in society and needs the support and sense of belonging, too much social pressures can also become a stifling cocoon of fantasies and stereotypes that surround him. He becomes confined to the prototype of who or what he is expected to be. Thus, because society is often blinded by the realms of the world, its impositions in turn cripples humanity. If he does not conform, he becomes a social out cast, excluded and excommunicated from the fabric of life. The theme alienation in a small society is depicted primarily through setting by both authors Conrad and Kafka in Metamorphosis and Heart of Darkness. This depiction demonstrates how this isolation has a negative impact on the individual and ultimately leads to his destruction and decadence.
The “play of difference” contributes to this cycle through what Hall identifies as “the Other,” an outside group used for differentiation. He claims that “only when there is an Other can you know who you are.” The “Other” serves to provide a comparison in order to discover that which one is not; this is differentiation. Identity does not solely rely on the social differentiation of the self – identity is mutually constructed. It does not exist without “the dialogic relationship to the Other.”(Hall, 11) That is, one’s personal narrative of the self must also come into play, relating identity to difference.
To be put in a place of no diversity is detrimental and damaging to many aspects of one’s life. It comes to a point where one doesn’t even know themselves. By not having people different from who you are, you aren’t being challenged or reflecting on your own identity. By the lack of integration we are ultimately hurting ourselves. Audre Lorde says in her essay, The Fourth of July, that her parents ignored the prevalent racism, she says, “perhaps it would go away, deprived of her attention(Lorde 255).” By ignoring and not facing what is in front of her she is depriving herself of truly knowing her self. She is exhibiting the ignorance of the world around and within her. Hurston describes how she sometimes feels discriminated against but it doesn’t really make her angry, rather, “it merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? (Hurston 188)” again people are not making the necessary steps into meeting new people. Just think about the number of missed opportunities that occur when we aren’t able to make the move. Our existing prejudices and stereotype is what is hold us back from the acknowledgement of others, which leads to a detrimental state for our own sense of identity. How do we learn about our selves? The answer is through reflection; this reflection happens through seeing how others view themselves. In a world where people are separated, misjudged and misperceived, we
Therefore, analysis of ‘The Simple Gift’ and ‘The River that wasn’t ours’ reveals belonging as an essential aspect to the human condition. One can feel connections to people and place through the varied nature of belonging. However, the consequences of not belonging can be detrimental to the individual or group and can result in feelings of displacement and distress.
Philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Buber both emphasize how the presence of others in our lives and the bonds which we create with them define who we are and affects our self-perception. Both have their own theory of how this occurs. I will begin by discussing Sartre’s perspective on the subject, and Buber’s stance will follow.
By analysing the free verse novel The Simple Gift by Steven Herrick, the song Numb by Linkin Park and the film The Matrix, it has been shown that some individuals deliberately separate themselves from having affinities with other individuals because for them to belong they would first have to alter their personality, a person’s life choices can encumber or support them in forming associations with other people and a person’s evaluation of how much they belong is defined by their perceived popularity or social status amongst other citizens. The composers of the novel, song and film have effectively shown that humans by nature crave to have connections with other individuals in order to have a sense of self value.
In Shakespeare's As You Like It loyalty is dominant theme. Each character possesses either a loyalty or disloyalty towards another. These disloyalties and loyalties are most apparent in the relationships of Celia and Rosalind, Celia and Duke Fredrick, Orlando and Rosalind, Adam and Orlando, and Oliver and Orlando. In these relationships, a conflict of loyalties causes characters to change homes, jobs, identities and families.
Many characters undergo a change in William Shakespeare’s play, “As You Like It”. Duke Senior goes from being a member of a court to being a member of a forest and Orlando changes from a bitter, younger brother, to a love-struck young man. The most obvious transformation undergone, is undoubtedly that of Rosalind. Her change from a woman to a man, not only alters her mood, candor, and gender, but also allows her to be the master of ceremonies.
Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. Comp. Folger Shakespeare Library. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2009. Print.
Erving Goffman uses a dramaturgical perspective in his discussion of impression management. Goffman’s analysis of the social world primarily centres around studies of the self and relationship to one’s identity created within a society. Through dramaturgy, Goffman uses the metaphor of performance theatre to convey the nature of human social interaction, drawing from the renowned quote “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players” from Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It.’ Much of our exploration of Goffman’s theories lies within the premise that individuals engage in impression management, and achieve a successful or unsuccessful performance. Impression management refers to the ways in which individuals attempt to control the impression that others have of them stemming from a basic human desire to be viewed by others in a favourable light. Goffman argues that our impressions are managed through a dramaturgical process whereby social life is played out like actors performing on a stage and our actions are dictated by the roles that we are playing in particular situations. In a social situation, the stage is where the encounter takes place, the actors are the people involved in the interaction, and the script is the set of social norms in which the actors must abide by. Just as plays have a front stage and back stage, this also applies in day-to-day interactions. Goffman’s theory of the front and back stage builds on Mead’s argument of the phases of the self. The front stage consists of all the public and social encounters with other people. It is similar to the ‘me’ which Mead talks about, as it involves public encounters as well as how others perceive you. Meanwhile the back stage, like the ‘I’, is the time spent with oneself reflecting on the interactions. Therefore, according to Goffman’s dramaturgical