Notes on Belonging: Feliks Skrzynecki

A. Belonging to Culture and Place 

 - Culture and place are intimately connected. Often our culture is determined by the place we grow up. It is our memories of places and their associated lifestyles that forms the basis of our identity
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 - Belonging to a culture is important for our identity, our sense of who we are. It can shape our values, beliefs and life decisions. When we live in new countries with very different lifestyles to our own, as many immigrants do, we may feel distant and alienated from our cultures. We may feel that our very selves have been undermined. In other words, alienation from our culture, can lead to alienation from ourselves.

 - In order to prevent this alienation, many immigrants, such as Feliks, try to maintain links to their culture. These links may be physical reminders of home as well as relationships with those people who share our culture. - In the poem, Feliks may feel alienated from the vastly different Australian culture and landscape. He therefore he creates a part of polish culture in his garden.

 - The simile, ‘Loved his garden like an only child’ shows how much Feliks cherishes his Polish heritage. Like a child, the garden can give Feliks’ life meaning, purpose and connection. This is further emphasised in the hyperbole of ‘He swept its paths/Ten times around the world’ which shows just how much time and effort Feliks is willing to sacrifice in order to feel a sense of belonging to his Polish culture.

 - Our belonging to a culture determines the way we live our lives and the way we spend our time. Feliks’ Polish culture has given him a deep connection with the land and physical labour. Even though he is in Australia, probably urban Sydney, Feliks’ culture still influences him to maintain a lifestyle of discipline and physical labour. This shows just how permanent and robust our belonging to culture can be: we cling to our own ways of life as they form part of who we are.

- In the poem, the pastoral imagery of ‘hands darkened/From cement, fingers with cracks’ combines with the simile, ‘Like the sods he broke’ to show that Feliks has deep links to the land and finds belonging in the physical work he performs.

- His strong work ethic and optimistic outlook no doubt stem from his cultural background where hard work was a way of life. Even though Feliks may live a relatively relaxed life in the Australian environment, Feliks maintains his belonging to Polish culture through his stoic and yet optimistic attitude. In the anecdote of ‘When twice/ They dug cancer out of his foot’ the persona uses contrast between the seriousness and solemness of cancer and Feliks’ simple and upbeat response of, ‘but I’m alive’ to show the way that Feliks derives strength from belonging to his culture.

 - Belonging to Culture determines the connections we make in many areas of our lives. Although Feliks is in a new country, he chooses friends that share his cultural background and experiences. In this way, culture acts as a conduit or the common ground that allows us to find belonging in friends and family.

- In the poem, Feliks and his friends reminisce about Polish life. The imagery of ‘paddocks flowered/ With corn and wheat’ shows how memories can help to maintain our belonging to friends and culture, even if we are far from home. The use and repetition of the collective pronoun they’ in the third stanza, when describing Feliks and his friends, emphasises how the persona, who does not share Feliks’ memories or experiences, remains an outsider to the Polish part of his father. In this way, the poem illustrates how culture - as well as providing a source of connection - can also be a source of alienation to those who are unfamiliar with the cultural norms.

 B. Belonging to Family

- Our family are often those who are closest to us. They help to form our identity as they live physically near to us and also form some of our closest emotional relationships. In other words, family helps to shape our values, beliefs and experiences. When we find belonging in family we can experience a strong sense of security and support. Belonging to family can also provide us with happy experiences and memories.

 - On the flip side, a sense of alienation from family members, due to family conflicts, physical separation or cultural differences, can lead to a sense of loss and a lack of a strong identity.

 - In the poem, the persona laments the way in which his life in Australia, and his immersion in Australian culture, leads to a growing alienation from his father.

 - Language begins to form a barrier between the persona and his father. Language is the means through which we connect and find belonging in others. However, the juxtaposition in the final stanza between the persona ‘stumbling over tenses in Caesar’s Gallic War’ while he ‘forgot his first Polish word,’ shows how the persona is becoming increasingly educated in Australian ways of thinking whilst losing his ability to find connection and belonging in his father. This is further emphasised in the simile, ‘like a dumb prophet’ which shows the way in which Feliks is aware that the persona’s Australian language and heritage is acting as a barrier between the two of them, but that he is powerless to stop it.

 - This idea is cemented in the final two lines where the persona uses the metaphor of ‘pegging my tents…further and further south of Hadrian’s wall.’ This allusion to Hadrian’s wall seems to symbolise the fact that as the persona drifts from the strength of his father’s Polish culture and heritage, he is at the same time beginning to forge a stronger sense of belonging to Australian language and culture.

 - The persona does not make a conscious choice to alienate himself from his father and his heritage. This is shown when the persona states that he learnt remnants of a language ‘unknowingly,’ that is without conscious choice. Furthermore, the persona uses metaphor and rhetorical question when quoting the department clerk who, ‘in dancing-bear grunts,’ asked, ‘Did your father ever attempt to learn English?’ The persona suggests the clerk is ignorant and does not understand the difficulty of learning a new language at Feliks’ advanced age. In this way, the poem illustrates how we may not always choose to know a particular language or belong to a particular culture – rather belonging to a culture may be bestowed upon us according to our family, and the place in which we grow up.

 C. Conclusion

 - The poem Feliks Skrzynecki emphasises the way in which belonging to culture can form our identity and give us a sense of who we are. We will go to great lengths to maintain our sense of belonging to a culture even if we are placed in a foreign environment and even if he we have to invest great time and effort in maintaining the connection. The poem also illustrates the importance of belonging to family and the way in which differences in culture and language can serve as a barrier to belonging to others, especially family members. We may often be powerless to stop alienation from our family because, due to events such as immigration, we cannot always choose to belong to the same culture to which they belong.