length: 1141 words 3.3 double spaced pages living in a multicultural australian community in the nineties where the enforcement of opposing cultures, beliefs and opinions is expected and the pressures of expectations are abundant would not be easy. This is especially obvious if the ‘victim’ is emotionally unhinged or at least slightly ajar and looking for stability through constants, including their heritage and who they actually are. Josephine alibrandi has all of these pressures heaped on her adolescent mind but the impact is doubled because she doesn’t know who she is, which isn’t helped by the fact that she has trouble initially ‘bonding’ with her father, which is a necessary step. It also doesn’t help that everyone is promoting a different and contradicting image of who she might or should be and what rules she should govern her life by, partly due to the scandal of her illegitimacy. These are some of the troubles facing josephine alibrandi, the main character of, and narrator in, the novel looking for alibrandi by melina marchetta. Josephine’s perspective on life and her attitude towards the influences in her life changes throughout the novel. Initially she is confused about her nationality, her social standing and, probably like any other teenage girl, she is unsure of her attractiveness.

If someone comes up and asks what nationality i am, i’ll look at them and say that i’m australian with italian blood flowing rapidly through my veins. I’ll say that with pride, because it’s pride that i feel marchetta, 1992, p 259 her emotions and internal battles are made tangible to a lesser degree through the fluent and descriptive language, but obviously no amount of intimate emotions can be conveyed easily without the use of first person point of view. The structure of the novel is somewhat like a diary, making it seem like she is revealing her innermost thoughts and feelings, which vary and change erratically as she reveals the nature of her relationship with her father. Although josie is struggling so hard to learn who she is, the first time she encounters her father, michael andretti, she forces him to make a promise that they will stay out of each others lives marchetta, 1992, p69.

However, through circumstance and need, the latter mainly on josie’s part, they are forced back into each other’s lives and eventually end up having a pretty good relationship. The nature of this father/daughter relationship is most easily deriver from their dialogue, as their harsh accusations turn to light hearted banter throughout the course of the novel. The first person point of view also reveals how her hate turns to camaraderie and gradually starts to grow towards love. It also shows how little some people know, as michael andretti’s mother struggles to communicate with her frustrated grand daughter, erecting unnecessary barriers through her ignorance of the fact that josie can speak english perfectly marchetta, 1992, p 164. Sydney, being a typically australian city and actually one of the most diverse cities in the world, is comprised of numerous cultures, all catalogued and sectioned off in their little pockets of the city. Unfortunately, due to human nature, there is always bound to be some friction between cultures.

You people should go back to your own country if you’re so confused people like josie have to bear the brunt of this as they try to find where they belong. The issue of multiculturalism is raised several times throughout its novel through dialogue, the memoirs of katia and the paranoid self destructive thoughts of josie herself. These thoughts are only really significantly delved into once near the beginning of the novel, as she was pondering how unfair her situation in life was, being the subject of ridicule racially and socially, the latter because of her illegitimacy. Living in a very strict italian community, josie ‘cops a lot of flak’ over her illegitimacy, which she finds out runs in the family. Both cases of illegitimacy in josie’s immediate family resulted from a single act of intercourse that happened because of the need to be loved. �he undressed me…careful…careful as if i was special and he laid me down on the bed…my marriage bed, jozzie, and he loved me.

Not like francesco who would lie on top of me for two minutes and then roll over and go to sleep. When i was wit marcus i was so angry wit francesco because i realised then how much he hadn’t given me. He just took all the time…it was as if i had no rights, but wit marcus i had rights’ marchetta, 1992, p 223 this need was the direct product of years of rejection. Therefore, even though at the outset of novel josie thinks and acts like a pure bred italian, she finds out through the course of this chapter of her life that only one quarter of the blood pumping through her veins is italian and she turned out none the worse for it. One of the more meaningful revelations of the effect that being illegitimate has had on her life is displayed by the structure of the novel, as it leaves the diary format and goes back into her memories. It goes back to the long ago game of hide and seek that was ended suddenly when a person she was playing with was dragged away by his name calling mother marchetta, 1992, p35.

The first person point of view again comes into play as she wallows in self pity at the beginning of the novel. She thinks everyone hates her and gossips about her because her father left town before she was born. She has to learn to accept that people will always gossip, and she can’t avoid it so why worry about it. Despite all of the odds against it, josie has obtained her one true goal in only a year.