Have you ever had the feeling that you just don’t fit in? Do you ever feel like you’ve gone somewhere and worn the wrong thing? And you walk into the room and feel everyone give you the look? Do you ever feel like everyone is staring at the pimple you’re imagining on the tip of your nose? We all feel like the odd one out some time in our lives, whether it’s because we don’t have the right colour hair or because we’re from a completely different culture that everyone else.

The odd one out is a topic covered in year eleven English, and culture was viewed to be one chief cause of the segregation and alienation of individuals whom feel that they are odd ones out. Aside from cultural difference, people can be considered the odd one’s out due to their physical appearance, their lifestyle, or even due to past experiences they have been subjected to.

Australia, being a multicultural nation, has many different cultures within itself, but even though there is such a variety, many people feel estranged a

Throughout the topic of the Odd One Out I learned a lot about myself and others, it is evident that the feeling of being different is sometimes just within ourselves, as we appear to be the same as everyone else on the outside. Being the odd one out is largely due to inner conflict, and it is something which we all battle for. For acceptance of us, not only from others, but most importantly is our acceptance of ourselves; because for as long as we do not accept ourselves, we cannot fit in with society. We are what we present ourselves to be to society, without self-assurance and acceptance; we make ourselves a target for scorn. Not all alienation and segregation can be solved from within, but it can be made a lot easier to deal with if we aren’t our own worst enemy.

Only Ten also looked at an individual being singled out due to his background. Hussein was a young boy who had come to Australia from a war-zone country and had grown up in terror. As the title suggests, the boy was only ten years of age, he had begun school where the children nicknamed him “the Shah”, and treated him without respect. Hussein felt alienated and afraid because his new surroundings baffled him.

nd out of sorts. They feel that everyone is looking at them oddly and judging them by the way they appear, the way the look and the way they live. A great number of these individuals find that they try to change themselves and their lifestyles to fit in with those around them, so they don’t feel like the odd one out. These minor changes usually cause them to feel uncomfortable with themselves and put on an act, which prohibits them from accepting themselves for who they are and doesn’t allow others to get to know them for what they are. Being from a different background myself, I come to understand many things which Olive goes through in The Willow Tree and Olive such as a simple lunchtime, when she has the need to throw out her lunch and be hungry because of little girls saying “Yuck, what smells like sick?” Simple comments such as these begin the segregation of individuals from the rest. They make the person feel out of place, usually causing them to wish for change, the question of “why can’t she just have Kraft cheese like the rest?”

Difference in culture was evident in two texts, which we studied, in Willow Tree and Olive and in Only Ten. Willow Tree and Olive was about a young Greek girl in an upper-city school, where she doesn’t feel that she fits in with the Anglo-Saxon dominated school kids, but she finds it equally as difficult to fit in with the Greek society. Olive doesn’t feel that she fits in anywhere or with anyone, largely due to her different background, upbringing and beliefs but also due to an incident from her childhood when she was sexually abused. As a result of each of these issues perplexing Olive’s life

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