Belonging

A feeling of being accepted, connected and at home within a place or group.

A feeling of being accepted or connected to a place, person, community or culture.

Belonging means feeling connected to somewhere or someone: a home, a family, a language, a landscape or a community. The fifteen poems in this collection explore both the pleasure of those connections and what happens when they become uncertain. A speaker may live in one country while imagining another, inherit household possessions without inheriting a parent's rootedness, or feel pressured to choose between identities that should coexist.

A feeling of connection, acceptance or being at home with people, a place or a way of life.

Choose your second poem for the precise focus of the question, not simply because both poems concern belonging.

Choose a second poem from Belonging that helps you answer the question, and compare both poems throughout your response.

Analyse particular words and line breaks: explain what they suggest about belonging instead of simply identifying questions, repetition or enjambment.

A feeling of connection, acceptance or being at home with a place, group or culture.

The feeling of being accepted, connected or at home with people or in a place.

In Anita and Me, identity concerns who Meena believes she is; belonging concerns where, and with whom, she feels accepted. These are connected, but they are not identical. Meena knows Tollington intimately, yet that familiarity does not guarantee acceptance.

The feeling of being accepted, recognised and connected to a place, community or group.

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Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0

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OCR GCSE English Literature · J352