How Does The Poem Feliks Skrzynecki Relate To Belonging

It is instinctive for humans to seek solace and acceptance through commonalities which they share with other people and thus are dependent on the relationships and connections formed. This is highlighted in Peter Skrzynecki’s poem, “Feliks Skrzynecki”, and Michael Powell’s movie “They’re a weird mob”. Both texts clearly exemplify the impacts on ones sense of belonging through connections between people and culture.
Skrzynecki’s poem “Feliks Skrzynecki” reinforces the significance of authentic connections in enhancing an individual’s sense of belonging through two contrasting perspectives. This is depicted through the persona’s father, Feliks who chooses to connect to his Polish heritage in Australia. His positive remembrance of his homeland

Furthermore, Feliks’s connection with other Polish compatriots adds to his sense of community in the foreign culture. The vivid imagery represented in the quote “shook hands too violently” displays the bond developed with other humans through sharing the same culture. Thus representing belonging through people and culture.
Although Skrzynecki shares a filial relationship with his father, this being seen in the first stanza “MY gentle father”, he cannot share his father’s personal fulfilment in his interactions with the Australian or Polish culture. This is clearly identified in the repetition and historic allusion of, “watched me pegging my tents further and further south of Hadrian’s wall” a symbol of the barrier which agitates Skrzynecki’s limited sense of belonging to either of the two cultures.
Moreover, the emotive language evident in, “happy as I have never been” encapsulates Skrzynecki’s regret and disorientation in his sense of self, therefore, belonging is impacted through the connections to people and culture. On the contrary, Nino Culotta in Powell’s movie, “They’re a weird mob” finds acceptance through assimilating into the Australian society after arriving as an Italian

His white pressed suit contrasts in style and colour to the t-shirts and shorts of the locals in Sydney identifying him as a migrant in a new country. Furthermore, Nino’s Italian accent in combination with his obscure grammar and sentence structure in the dialogue, “please do you mind, using your courtesy of telling me, where now I am?” engenders discrimination and obstructs his experience of belonging to his new home.
However, Nino perseveres with his endeavours to understand the Australian vernacular when a man buys him a drink at the bar, “why I should shout?... I didn’t hear you shout?” The use of humour in Culotta’s confusion of the slang “shout” asserts a light-hearted mood that broadcasts Nino’s determination to be submerged into the Australian way of