Looking for Alibrandi by Kate Woods is the story about Josephine Alibrandi’s last year at her private girl’s school. This is the year she deals with many issues and the major themes that are portrayed help us understand that. The search for identity and the sense of belonging are the themes that are shown in many different scenes throughout the movie through different techniques, often with the film technique of voice-over dialogue. The first scene that the theme of identity is shown is in the opening scene, ‘Tomato day’. This is demonstrated through the use of narration by Josie, and we can understand from the tone of her voice with the dialog exactly how she feels. In the scene ‘Tomato Day’, Josie states “This might be where I come from, but do I really belong here?” …show more content…
This statement introduces the issue and lets the audience know how she feels. Josie feels that she doesn’t belong with her family and that she doesn’t identify with their culture. The dialog then goes on to say “That's the past and you can't let the past run your life...I have got to get out of here...I'm cursed…” The statements clearly show Josie feels she doesn’t identify with her family and her thoughts about them, and are important because they allow the audience to understand the theme of searching for identity.
The theme of a sense of belonging in Looking for Alibrandi is shown well when Josie learns of John's suicide. Before this scene, John and Josie had written letters to each other of their thoughts, with John’s turning out to be a suicide note: “If I could be anything other than what I am, I'd want it tomorrow. If I could be what my father wants me to be, then maybe I'd sty for that too. But if I could be what you want me to be, i would stay. But I am what I am and all I want is freedom.” This clearly shows the theme of belonging and the extreme consequences of youth not feeling like they belong. John felt as though he would never fit in with his family and that he couldn't live up to their expectations. The importance of this theme had to be expressed to the audience to show the effect of teenagers having no sense of belonging. In the final scene in Looking for Alibrandi the theme of the search for identity is portrayed through the resolution of Josie's issue of not feeling like she
belongs. This scene, which is set at the annual Tomato day event, a year later from the first Tomato day scene we saw, again uses narration to show Josie’s view on things and how she feels. Josie says: “I'd always dreamed of being someone impressive and famous, you know someone people could sit back and envy...but i know now that what's important is who I feel I am... I'm Christina and Michael's daughter and Katia's granddaughter. And we are not cursed, we are blessed.” The statement really shows how her attitude has completely changed over the course of the year. Josie’s found connection with her family shows she has found her identity, and has solved the issue of not having a sense of belonging. This theme and the fact that it had been resolved is important because it shows the audience how you can resolve the issue of having no sense of belonging, like in Josie’s case of fixing the broken connections of her family. Josie ends up learning to accept her culture, family, and everything that had been issues during her year, and as a result resolving her search for identity and belonging. The themes of identity and belonging are introduced by voice-over, which has been able to help the audience to understand how to resolve issues by narrating how Josie has dealt with hers. The audience I feel would mainly be of teens, and them being able to connect with Josie gives them security and more confidence to help them understand who they are.
Firstly, being in an Italian in an Australian society has affected Josie in many different ways because the way people view her affects her in the start of the novel because she doesn’t know who she is because she hasn’t developed her cultural identity. Later in the novel, she accepts that she is a ‘wog’ and this affects
Through the protagonist, Josie the audiences learn that being an illegitimate and meeting one’s parent is hard to tackle but that feeling will eventually change once the individual has known their parent. “How dare you think that I want to be in your life! I don’t want you anywhere near us, especially my mother.” is the dialogue that Josie has told Michael when they had their first conversation.
Although, father is the person that provides care and protection to their children with Josie it is different. She has an unnecessary childhood which she is facing with discrimination and illegitimacy.
The writer incorporates a lot of repeated names for the characters which made it difficult to distinguish the certain characters a different given times and their connection to Josie in the script. For example, in the beginning, the writer shows Josie in a soon to be ended relationship with
Josie's father has had very little immediate impact on her life thus far. When her father did arrive in back in Sydney Josie is naturally angry at him. This is a totally acceptable form of behaviour considering the circumstance, but her anger not only stems from her own personal experience. Josie had to grow up knowing that her father had abandoed her and her mother, pushing her Christina into being a single parent bringing up her child alone.
Josie feels as if her traditions will only give her more problems. “She wants to know why other Italian girls have Italian boyfriends and I don’t. If I want to go out with Australians, she objects. ‘What do they know about culture?’ she asks. ‘Do they understand the way we live?’”Nonna wants Josie to marry an Italian man in the future, but she herself had an affair with an Australian when she was young. She decides to hide the guilt and take the frustrations out on Christina and Josie by saying that “a daughter’s behaviour always reflects on how a good mother is.”. Josie’s relationship with Jacob lets her understand how relaxed the Australian culture is. Josie doesn’t want Jacob to meet her parents as she knows that they won’t accept him as he lives “without religion and culture.”, but it has let Josie understand that Australia is a multicultural country and that living there with another background does not make you
Josie is searching to discover the true nature of her family history. She comes to learn that much of what she has been told in incorrect. A number of issues that both she and her mother deal with are explained by some of her family circumstances.
Confusion, adolescents are on a journey for who they really are, what they believe in, and where do they fit in. Stuck in between a child and an adult, this stage can prove dramatic at times. With awkward changes through puberty and social environments in school, no wonder adolescents have that uncomfortable feeling Erikson refers to. DJ depicted an adolescent uncomfortable in her own skin while worrying too much about what others thought. A group of cheerleaders told her she had to lose weight to get in, consequently, DJ began to eat less and exercise more until she passed out at the gym.
Nina is one of the main characters in this movie and Josie is her best friend. A scene where their friendship is characterized is one where Josie and Nina are riding in a cab. Josie gets upset with Nina (briefly) when she finds out that Nina has had sex with Darius (the other main character) on the first night they went out. The haste in which they have had sex does not bother her as much as the fact that Nina does not tell her. This example is a direct correlation to one of the themes of women?s friendship that intimacy is cultivated through dialogue. This suggest that women build closeness in their friendships dialogue and by Nina not telling, it breaks the code of intimacy in a way. The establishment of a new relationship something like this that is an important part of Nina?s life, and excluding Josie from that is what is troubling her. Even though I do not believe that to be true in this example, that can be argued as a reason Nina doesn?t share.
The novel “Looking for Alibrandi” is a realistic portrayal of teenagers’ lives in the contemporary Australia. The author Melina Marchetta has portrayed her teenager characters in ways, which engage with the contemporary Australian teenagers. In this critical response, it will examine different kinds of relationships of the teenagers in this novel, the friendship, love relationship, and expectations from the family.
Although Josie is struggling so hard to learn who she is, the first time she encounters her father, Michael Andretti, she forces him to make a promise that they will stay out of each others lives (Marchetta, 1992, p69). However, through circumstance and need, the latter mainly on Josie’s part, they are forced back into each other’s lives and eventually end up having a pretty good relationship.
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.
During the teenage years they no longer want to be labeled the “child; matter of fact, they have a strong desire to rebel against the family norms and move quickly into adulthood. This transition and want for freedom can be a very powerful and frightening thing as there are evils in this world that cannot be explained. Most parents try to understand and give their teens certain freedoms, but at what expense? Joyce Oates gives us a chilly story about a teenager that wanted and craved this freedom of adulthood called “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”. This is a haunting story of a young girl by the name of Connie who gives us a glimpse of teenager transitioning from childhood with the need for freedom and the consequences of her actions. Connie is described as a very attractive girl who did not like her role in the family unit. She was the daughter who could not compare to her older sister and she felt her Mom showed favoritism towards her sister. Connie is your average teen who loves music, going out with friends, and she likes the attention she receives from boys. During this time, Connie is also growing into her sexuality and is obsessing with her looks as she wants and likes to be noticed by the opposite sex. Her sexual persona and need to be free will be what is fatal to her character’s life and well-being.
Throughout the story, the boy went through a variety of changes that will pose as different themes of the story including alienation, transformation, and the meaning of religion. The themes of this story are important to show the growth of the young boy into a man. Without alienation, he wouldn't have understand the complexity of his feelings and learned to accept faults. With transformation, he would have continued his boyish games and wouldn't be able to grow as a person and adolescence. And finally, without understanding the religious aspects of his life, he would go on pretending he is somebody that he's not. He wouldn't understand that there is inconsistency between the real and ideal life (Brooks et al.).
Growing up, I always felt out of place. When everyone else was running around in the hot, sun, thinking of nothing, but the logistics of the game they were playing. I would be sat on the curb, wondering what it was that made them so much different from me. To me, it was if they all knew something that I didn’t know, like they were all apart of some inside joke that I just didn’t get. I would sit, each day when my mind wasn’t being filled with the incessant chatter of my teachers mindlessly sharing what they were told to, in the hot, humid air of the late spring and wonder what I was doing wrong. See, my discontent