Personal Response
To Looking for Alibrandi
The novel Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta (1993), is about a young 16 year old girl named Josephine Alibrandi trying to find herself in her final year of high school. It shows high and lows throughout the novel with Josie finding her father and starting a relationship with him, to losing her close friend John Barton from suicide. There are many themes in the novel such as Family, Relationships, Search for identity and Multiculturalism.
The narrative conventions seen in the novel Looking for Alibrandi have shaped my response to the theme of Multiculturalism seen in the novel.
In the novel, Multiculturalism is expressed through characterization. For instance, Anna is one of Josie's friends who are from a different culture. There is also Seraphina who is Italian like Josephine, and whose father "⦠thinks she is the Virgin Mary." Lastly there is Lee, an Australian who is a bit of a rebel who "â¦.
English: Ortodox Cathedral in Sao Paulo
Statue titled, Monument to Multiculturalism by Fra...
English: Political cartoon. Title: "The next favor...Thinks its cool to come to school with a hangover."
Seraphina is Josie's best friends who do everything together. Because Josie and Sera and so similar in terms of cultural background they understand each other more and the issues to do with their culture and acceptance associated with it. Anna is a very sweet and kind girl, but doesn't always follow with conversations that Josie and Sera talk about, and seems like she is in her own world most of the time.
Multiculturalism is also seen in the Plot as a lot of the novel is based around Josie's Italian culture and Heritage. Multicultural Australia has many stories of people struggling to establish a sense of identity Josephine Alibrandi is one of them. She sees herself as stuck in between two cultures where she wants to be "â¦free and...