Shoreline Used To Be Essay

Where The Shoreline Used To Be

Charlotte Richardson

‘I was a child of many worlds who didn’t quite feel right in any.’

(Muslim Footprint)

The short stories in ‘Where The Shoreline Used To Be’ show that feeling like you belong is an important part of growing up. Do you agree?

The Book Where ‘The Shoreline Used to Be’ is a collection of short stories, poems and song lyrics edited by Susan La Marca and Pam Macintyre. Feeling as though you belong is a crucial part of growing up. The characters from the various different stories found a sense of belonging within their families, Schools and selves.

The idea of belonging is the emotional need to be an accepted member in a group of family, friends, co-workers, religion or something else. Throughout

A good example of this is the story Muslim Footprint, the main character a Palestinian-Muslim girl moves to the foreign country of Australia. “I was surprised I stayed as happy as I did, but my sister and family gave me strength.” Having support from her loved ones and knowing that they had her back helped guide her through the rough patches and give her the assurance that she has a place where she belongs within her family. This quote shows that family is an important part of growing up and having them there backing you all the way gives you an important sense of belonging. Here is an example shows “A couple of thousands of years ago his imaginary friend dictated a book to a few dessert-dwelling relatives who were still excited about the invention of the wheelbarrow and my father treats in like… well… gospel.” In the story Another Theory of Relativity the main character Ryan Griffiths a year ten philosophy student writes a report on the relative nature of life. During the report he compares the relativity or various things. Towards the end of the

To truly belong within yourself you have to stop fretting over others opinions and start making decisions for yourself and not them. Within many of the stories in Where The Shoreline Used To Be the characters go through the journey of finding themselves. An example of this is in the story Pencil the main character Brenda had a boyfriend “but he diverted into computers and Brenda refused to update to mouses.” Although it may not seem like it Brenda has a true sense of belonging within herself, she doesn’t need others to approve of her pencil collection for her to be happy with it. She didn’t let her boyfriend control her opinion; she stuck with her pencils because that was what she wanted and she wasn’t going to let get rid of them just for her boyfriends approval. This next example shows how the character did not have a sense of self-belonging and slowly began to gain some. “It looked as if she had finally decided to escape from her husband.” In the story The Butcher’s Wife the Butcher is an abusive drunk and takes it out on his wife. Every time she gets a black eye she covers it with makeup, one night he chased her out of the house and he abused her in front of the whole street. That was the last straw for the Butchers Wife, later that night she took their baby and she left her husband. Between Brenda and the Butchers Wife