We Still Call Australia Home - Why Have Refugees Constantly Come to Australia?
Essay by Maxi • August 29, 2011 • Essay • 846 Words (4 Pages) • 2,019 Views
Essay Preview: We Still Call Australia Home - Why Have Refugees Constantly Come to Australia?
Why have refugees constantly come to Australia? Why are they fleeing their own country, and place where they call home? They are all here for one thing, freedom and a chance for a new, fresh, positive start in life.
For those who have grown up in this country, we seem to have forgotten how lucky we are to have a home like Australia and we're taking almost everything for granted.
This idea is captured in poetry and literature. There are two poems that spring to mind when discussing this topic, "Summer Rain" by John Foulcher and "Arrival" by Mr. Quinn. These poems convey different aspects of what "home" is in Australia.
The poem 'Summer Rain' portrays a negative view of our "home". The poet describes a scene in which workers are travelling home in what seems to be congested traffic. Realising that this is a scene of heavy traffic from the line 'clutter on the highway like abacus beads', suggests the reason why 'no one can overtake.' This follows on with 'you wrench yourself from the road.' The use of second person engages the audience; it's as if telling us what we would do in that situation. The poet further develops a wider perspective of the lives and activities experienced in the suburban area in the rest of the poem.
Assuming he's been through this situation many times, he obviously knows what's going on in the area. If we were trapped in that situation what would we do to past time? W would generally turn our heads and analyse the houses or seek out for some sort of drama in the neighbourhood, but since Foulcher's been through this area numerous times, he has nothing better to do, but to look at the dark trees, implying the suburban area has not experienced a recent change, but it is still a place of refuge despite the changing life of its inhabitant. Symbolism has been used to expose the monotonous, daily grind these aussies are living through each day. Like 'the cricket sound,' where we think it's just a representation for an image of Australia, well think again. Figuratively speaking, crickets make a repetitive, annoying noise which reinforces no change occurring. By the end of the poem, Foulcher uses a blunt tone to hypothesise the children playing outsides future. His word choice 'pound' implies that they they're maybe rehearsing for their later life, that they might have to fight for the hard world, like 'heroes'. Since they live in a place where is no change, the children will grow up revolving around the same activities as their parents are in that moment in time. As the congested traffic finally comes to an end, workers continue their journey home. The poet uses a metaphor 'unbroken road' to express that the road will go on, which encounters that our lives will go on. He's implying that no matter what we do, through the thick
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