Belonging – ‘We Are Going’

What does the Oodgeroo Noonuccal verse form We are Going have to say rough Belonging and Not Belonging? How does the poet use language forms, features and structures to convey humors and feelings? The poesy We Are Going by Oodgeroo Noonuccal is ab reveal the displacement of the fundamental batch in Australian society/culture and their confusion about where or what to belong to as their traditional customs ar interpreted external/forgotten. The text raises the issues and themes of Belonging through a mostly-defeated tone as it shows their loss of tradition and culture in the new Australia.In order to get a adept of sympathy and consideration for the old people, the poet uses a pluck of language forms and techniques to cause effect in this text. One of the most classical of these is the writers use of Irony in Lines 8-9 we see the words, We argon strangers here at once, but the white tribe are the strangers. We belong here, we are of the old ways. This statement, in pa rticular, expresses the boilers suit message of this poem spell focusing on the Belonging concept.The writer put forward the arouse yet tragic idea that the Aboriginal people no womb-to-tomb belong to their home enter, whereas the White tribe who are unable to fully take in or appreciate it as the Indigenous do have now overrun them and belong more to this land now than they do. This side of the poem brings it its tragic and defeated tone, thus affecting the reader. The language the poet uses is quite promiscuous and colloquial, without using any slang. The feeling created is that of a story-telling almost.They also use nearly Indigenous words such as corroboree and aspiration Time. This is in-keeping with the poets heritage and the nature of belonging to a language and to a people. employ unusual, broken-meter and irregular phrasing, the melancholy mood is heightened in that it doesnt flow as a poem often does. This puts more dialect on individually line and makes it so und less want a poem, more like a short story. Then, in Lines 8-14, the constant repetition of the word we at the beginning of each line gives the poem a more defiant, burnished edge devising it sound like a pledge.The blunt railway line between the words We and They at the beginning of legion(predicate) lines de-humanises the White people, making them seem more like an enemy or foe. The poet also uses rattling emotive words such as Subdued and Silent, Dream Time, Laughter and Belong to cause effect, as well as Visually-impacting words such as Wandering Camp Fires, Lightening, shameful Lagoon and Shadow Ghosts. These add to the emotional effect and eerie feel. kindred a true Indigenous person (the author is clearly Aboriginal by looking at her name and her use of they and we), they speak of the land like their mother, their provider (eg. The shrubs are foregone(p), the hunting and the laughter. The eagle is gone, the emu and the kangaroo are gone from this place, and so th e poet asserts a strong connection and sense of Belonging to the land and to their people, even though they are dying out as a culture and community. As the final line states, And We Are Going, the writer is not only stressing that their race or set is becoming extinct, but also that the traditional Indigenous customs and traditions and beingness forgotten.These are a part of the Aboriginal culture and a world-shattering thing, which they belong to as a people. This is shown through the writers emphasis on these customs and traditions in such lines as We are the corroboree and the bora end and We are the wonder tales of the Dream Time, the tribal legends told. When the poet uses phrases like The Shrubs are gone and The emu and kangaroo are gone from this place, she doesnt mean they are extinct completely, of course.What she is saying is, in point, is that their traditional way of life is gone the hunting and gathering, their wandering camp fires. The White people have dimini sh and taken over their land and have chased away many of the native plants, animals etc. and as such the Aboriginals are left muddled and misplaced in their own land, becoming dependent on the Europeans for food, whereas ahead they were self-sufficient and able to hunt, and medicine, with the introduction of virus and disease.And so, basically, the poem is in fact a metaphor for the disappearing old way of life of the Aboriginal people and their connection and sense of Belonging to the land. It assumes a slightly nostalgic tone with traces of defiance in some parts but an overall sense of hopelessness and defeat. Through it, we the reader meditate on the idea of Belonging and ask ourselves what the Aboriginal people will belong to in our society where their old traditional ways are being taken away. In the words of Oodgeroo Noonuccal, We Are Going.