Asylum Seekers Essay

All three texts focus on asylum seekers. Each text views asylum seekers in a different way while also sharing similar concerns with the two other texts. The poem, Outsider, by Cassidy Stagg and the short story, Stained, by Sara El Sayed, both imaginatively and sympathetically explore the struggles that asylum seekers face while trying to fit in and how the two personas deal with being the obvious outsider. The newspaper article, Truth Founders in A Sea of Bias, by Andrew Bolt, focuses on the success of Operation Sovereign Borders. This text contrasts with the other two as it does not focus on being sympathetic towards asylum seekers and their stories but rather takes the controversial view that asylum seekers come by boat or ‘fakes’ shouldn’t …show more content…
Stagg has placed the reader as an outsider to the poems persona. The readers see themselves as the people who give ‘strange looks’ ‘that mark me as an outsider’, which then opens up questions for the reader, such as, do I give people strange looks? Or, am I one of those people? Unlike Outsider, in Truth Founders in a Sea of Bias, Bolt involves the reader by including direct address. ‘You’d’ being the first word of the article invites the reader into the debate. Bolt also uses direct address throughout the article and uses the word ‘our’ so the reader feels a sense of ownership towards ‘our navy’ or ‘our government’, which then encourages the reader to feel disheartened when Bolt tells stories of people “disrespecting” them. The article also involves the reader by concluding with two rhetorical questions Bolt encourages the readers to respond by agreeing with his article and therefore his opinion. Similar to Outsider, Stained also involves the reader by bringing questions into the readers mind. The reader can identify with Khaled in his rejection by Hannah, though his rejection is more to do with identity, as everyone has been rejected by love. This makes the reader question if they have ever been someone’s