Hi everyone,
Here is our extended response to the focus question:
Peter Skrzynecki’s collection of poems "Immigrant Chronicle" offers a
personal perspective on the experience of Australian migrants, especially
those coming out of the second World War, with an emphasis on the challenges
and hardships experienced by the migrants to settle in a new country.
Skrzynecki employs various language techniques to explore and reveal
perspectives about identity, isolation and assimilation to a new culture in
"Migrant Hostel", "10 Mary Street" and "Kornelia Woloszcuk".
"Migrant Hostel" illustrates Skrzynecki’s life as one of the migrants in
Parkes. "No one kept count of all the comings and goings". There is a strong
sense of anonymity and transience reflected in this line which highlights
and emphasises the temporary and uncertain nature of life at the hostel.
The image of the bird is important in this poem as it reflects the migrants’
feelings of alienation and sense of insecurity in this new country. The
simile "like a homing pigeon" emphasises these feelings and vividly
describes how the newcomers congregate in their own nationality groups
desperately needing comfort from each other. This shows that the migrants in
the hostel are vulnerable and are isolated from the outside world. The
metaphor of the birds is extended in the third stanza where Skrzynecki
states in a personal way "we lived like birds of passage". The migrants are
like migratory birds which move from continent to continent, "always sensing
a change" but "unaware of the season whose track [they] would follow". These
lines convey Skrzynecki’s frustration and uncertainty about their future.
The personification of the "barrier" in the last stanza is also significant
in revealing the migrants’ sense of alienation and their feelings of
detachment from their new society. It is also a simile that describes the
barrier as a "finger" pointing to "reprimand or shame". This displays the
poet’s negative perspective of Australian society as a sense of separation
and humiliation is felt and associated with being an immigrant. The last two
lines of the poem suggest that the future of the migrants is uncertain-
"that had only begun or were dying".
"10 Mary Street" is Skrzynecki’s first home in Australia. "For nineteen
years" is repeated in the poem to empahsise the integral role the home
played for the poet and his family. It provides them with a sense of
stability that had been lost when they migrated to Australia. The Skrzynecki
family develop a routine-"each morning [they] shut the house like a
well-oiled lock...to school and work". Once again this shows that the house
is the source of everything that is familiar and stable- it is their refuge.
In contrast to the hard physical labour of the parents, they have a lovely
garden, which is a restorative part of their life. They "tended roses and
camellias like adopted children". This simile conveys a positive perspective
about the nurturing atmosphere of the family and suggests rebirth and the
beginning of a new life.
The house is also valuable to the family due to the fact that their old
traditions, "pre-war" ways are being kept alive. They eat "Kielbasa", drink
"raw vodka" and have "heated discussions and embracing gestures". The family
retains their Polish culture as part of their identity. However, the poet,
himself uses "puffing Billies" to describe the adults’ smoking, which is
more appropriate and relevant to the Australian culture. It implies that
Skrzynecki has gradually distanced himself from his Polish culture and has
adapted to the new Australian culture.
In the last stanza, the poet displays his sadness and dispossession of the
house being demolished by saying that they are "inheritors of a key" that
won’t open another house when this one is gone. The poet seems to be
ambivalent about his future citizenship and his social and psychological
entry to mainstream Australian culture.
The third poem which reflects Skrzynecki’s personal perspective on the
migrant experience is "Kornelia Woloszczuk". It is a reflection of a migrant
mother’s difficulties in bringing up her "only child" who is from a
completely different cultural world.
In the first stanza, the line "as if hands were dragging the depths of a
swamp" suggests that the son’s leaving either emotional or physical means
that they would no longer be attached to each other and she would be
disappointed and deeply pained.
In the second stanza, a lexical chain is employed which includes the words
"silence", "absence", "loneliness" and "wasteland". These words reflect the
mother’s desolation and disappointment towards her son as well as suggesting
the hardships of being a migrant mother who is bound by cultural barriers.
In the fourth stanza Kornelia wishes for her son to have faith and to
"cherish" their Polish culture- "to sustain the winds on which prophets
spoke". This is the cause of their conflict and it highlights the challenges
and hardships immigrant families face such as Peter Skrzynecki’s whereby the
children and parents’ relationships are strained due to the cultural gap and
confused identities.
Peter Skrzynecki communicates his personal perspective about the various
aspects of migrants in his collection of poems and in particular "Migrant
Hostel", "10 Mary Street", and "Kornelia Woloszczuk".
thanks!
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