Ana’s experience of Wickham Point depicts how Atkins privileges a view of outsiders as physically excluded from their community. Through Ana’s description of the detention centre, Atkins demonstrates the symbolic barriers that isolate outsiders from society. Ana’s views of the centre are revealed when she leaves for her first day of school stating that “The door behind [her] closes, and for a moment [she is] trapped in a concrete void that is neither in nor out.” (2) The word ‘concrete’ suggests an inescapable, unwelcoming space often implicative of a prison. A ‘void’ can relate to an absence of something or the feeling of want that can be associated with a refugee’s pursuit of acceptance into society. This depicts societies the treatment of
