Identity and belonging
What Identity and belonging means in English Literature GCSE, as defined for AQA, Pearson Edexcel.
Definitions of Identity and belonging
Exam boards and our study guides word this term in slightly different ways. Learn the version your board uses.
Check what you remember
Read the wording for your board, then hide it and explain Identity and belonging in your own words. Rough notes are fine. This is a self-check, with no mark or grade.
Reference: AQA
The poem suggests that a person's sense of place and identity is constructed through memory and emotion, which cannot be erased by political power.
Meena's struggle with who she is and where she fits in Tollington, which students must understand critically.
The poem explores a divided identity and reflects on belonging, family and the distance between two cultures.
The speaker has personal memories of the area and feels its loss keenly, linking place and identity.
Topics that use Identity and belonging
- Poetry anthology: Power and Conflict (AQA GCSE)
- Component 1: Shakespeare and Post-1914 Literature - Set Texts: Post-1914 British play or novel (Pearson Edexcel GCSE)
- Component 2: 19th-century Novel and Poetry since 1789 - Poetry Anthology: Time and Place (Pearson Edexcel GCSE)
Related terms
- Family relationships
- Memory and the past
- Alienation
- Ambiguity
- Anti-pastoral
- Bathos
- Caesura
- Class and social inequality
Using Identity and belonging in the exam
Check the command word and mark scheme for your exact question. After comparing your explanation with the reference, use the term in an answer on the linked topic. This practice does not predict an exam mark.
Practise English Literature questions
Create a free account to answer exam-style questions on this topic and get feedback on your answers.
A week of Premium from your first lesson · Then the free plan continues · No card, no charge