St Patrick’s College: Different Perceptions of Belonging

Individuals often have differing ideas on what it means to belong. For one person, conforming to a social group or practice may be a source of comfort and security. For another person, being forced to conform to the same group may feel alienating and depressing.

In St Patrick’s College, the persona’s mother has very different ideas about belonging than the persona. For the persona’s mother, the deeply religious and formal academic environment of the school offers her son the opportunity to belong to Australian culture and the Catholic religion. The persona, on the other hand, does not comprehend, or find belonging the school’s values and beliefs. Thus his mother’s attempt to help him belong is ironically alienating.

The description ‘impressed by the uniforms’ in the first stanza is used to show how the persona’s mother believes her son is finding belonging whereas in reality he is feeling repressed and disconnected.

The technique of accumulation in ‘voices at bus stops, litanies and hymns’ shows that the persona has not developed many close relationships or emotional connections at the school. The abstract and impersonal noun ‘voices’ shows he may not have had many close friends at the school. Furthermore, the detached description of ‘litanies and hymns’ shows that the persona has little interest in these activities and is simply going through the motions. In this way the poem shows how a lack of belonging to place can lead to a lack of belonging to the people and activities in our lives. Again, the subtext of the poem is that whilst these activities may have been considered the epitome of belonging for the persona’s mother, they were actually alienating for the persona.  

In the final stanza, the poem finishes with an ironic yet optimistic tone. On the one hand, the persona uses irony when he ‘Prayed that Mother would someday be pleased.’ The persona has no real connection to the school’s religion but he still hopes that his mother’s sacrifice of time and money will eventually pay off. His sense of belonging to his family is far stronger than his connection to the school. 

This is further conveyed in the contrasting imagery of the ‘darkness around me’ with the final line, ‘I let my light shine.’ The persona is using irony because the school's motto means 'let your light shine.' It is only now that the persona is free from the school that he can begin to find a sense of belonging in new places, and in doing so find a renewed sense of belonging to himself. The persona’s graduation is no doubt for his mother the ultimate attainment of belonging to culture and religion. For the persona, however, it simply marks his liberation from alienation and disconnection. 

The description of 'her employer's sons' shows the great effort and expense the persona's mother is going through in order to give her son the chance to belong to a more privileged social class. This shows how we may often need to sacrifice our time, our effort and our money to give ourselves, or others, the chance to belong. However, even if we do so, we may still fail, as the persona is isolated and alienated at the school.

The dialogue of the persona's mother in the first stanza, which is repeated in the final stanza, 'what was best,' expresses the mother's hope of her son belonging to a more privileged social class. However, the phrase takes on an ironic meaning as the persona feels that the school was not 'for the best' at all. In this way, Skrzynecki uses dialogue, irony and idiomatic language to show the way in which our commonly held perceptions of what it means to belong can often be mistaken. Belonging is thus shown to be mediated by individual preferences, values and beliefs. It is not always something which can be bestowed on others according to our own social paradigms and life preferences.

Finally, the persona uses the imagery of 'mother crossed herself' to convey her sense of belonging to religion which again contrasts with the persona's alienation from it. This is shown in the recount that he 'could say the Lord's prayer / In Latin, all in one breath.' For the persona, religion is a mechanical and routine process and ostensibly he may appear to belong to religion through his recitals of prayers and the singing of hymns, he actually has no deep or significant emotional connection to it.