Looking for Alibrandi Essay

A world-wide hit in the late 1990s, writer Melina Marchetta wrote a manuscript about a teenage girl scrutinizing for herself and the way she is to live. Her name is Josephine Alibrandi who is a 17 year old Italian Australian or wog as some know it, in the apologue and film of Looking for Alibrandi. Much of the discussion of Alibrandi has centred around this portrayal of the multi-cultural fiat of Australia, although remarkably, the refreshful has managed to largely avoid the negative and superficial issues pigeon-holing so practically realist fiction for young adults is victim to.There is no question that Marchettas own experiences as an Italian-Australian have informed her story. Nor is there any interrogation that in Josephine Alibrandi she has created a fresh non-Anglo-Australian voice of great power and integrity. Nevertheless, Marchetta does regain that the focus on the Italian heritage of her protagonist (and herself) can be both distracting and limiting it was not, she says, her first impulse in telling Josephine Alibrandis story Another legacy of the shared Italian-Australian heritage of both motive and protagonist is the common assumption that the book must be autobiographical.The narration of her novel is in some ways complimentary, being as it is an property of the kind of response readers have to Josephine, and to the lively and truthful tone of the novel Marchetta has captured her characters, their situation and the inner city suburbs of Sydney acutely and precisely. The ambivalence Marchetta feels towards Josephine is revealed through the characters of child Louise, her headmistress, and her boyfriend Jacob, neither of whom hesitate to point out to Josephine when she is being stingy, over-dramatic, or plain stupid.A quite shocking example of this is in the pictorial matter where Jacob rescues Josephine from a violent mob of teenage boys in a McDonalds motorcar park, and then abuses her for her stupidity in spitting on and further ant agonising the ring-leader. It is an distinction of the exasperation that Josephine provokes in those who care about her, and Marchetta agrees with Jacob that Josephines dramatic and free behaviour too frequently land her in avoidable unpleasantness.To be fair, Josephine can be fairly hard on herself, and her ability at and willingness for self-scrutiny develops as she matures. It is testament to Marchettas care in balancing the complexities of Josephines character that the reader can witness her tantrums and drama-queen turns, her often thoughtless and selfish actions, and yet know that this is an essential part of her emancipation, and that it does not detract from her vitality, lenity and intelligence.Young Australian readers will find the setting of the novel in truth realistic and familiar. They will identify with the portrayal of Australian high shallow life, attending a debating meeting, the description of suburban Sydney and catching the ferry to tirade Quay, the fact of being part of a dysfunctional family ? all these enlarge of the setting are realistic and will be instantly recognisable. some(prenominal) teenagers of foreign parentage will relate to Josies rebellion against her Italian side and to all the references to the Italian culture.