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Romulus My Father

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An individual’s perceptions of belonging evolves in response to the passage of time and interaction with their world

The continuation of time can morph an individual’s interaction in their world, changing their perceptions of their milieu that they associate themselves as a manner of response to life experiences. The dynamic nature of the primordial desire to belong is heavily explored by Raimond Gaita through the reflective memoir ‘Romulus My Father. Within it, Gaita seeks to discern the effects of establishing strong connections with the external environment over time in order to understand and ultimately belong to a new environment. From this, we are able to perceive how a personal sense of belonging can be attributed on experiences from those around us, and how their influence increase over the passage of time.

The ability to gain an understanding and attachment with one’s changing environment creates an interminable bond with one’s adaptive identity. In Romulus My Father, Romulus was initially unable to accept his status as a “New Australian”, as he was initially unwilling to disassociate himself from his European lifestyle – “Romulus Gaita always considered himself a Romanian”. His description of the European foliage as “soft and generous” includes emotive language to resonate the resilient relationship between his origins. This lack of assimilation is corroborated through his detachment from the Australian landscape “His eyes looked directly at the foliage and turned away offended”. This disconnection is further illustrated by his assignment of symbols to the land of “deprivation and barrenness”. The inability for Romulus to reattach himself to his changing environment leads him to become delusional in his understanding of his identity, distorting his perceptions of belonging.

Through our own and others’ experiences, we are able to increase our

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