This document analyzes the techniques used in the poem "Feliks Skrzynecki" through discussing various quotes and themes. It explores the reflective tone and point of view of the adult narrator. Key techniques discussed include the use of imagery, similes, metaphors, and dialogue to portray the father Feliks' resilience and strong work ethic despite facing discrimination and the loss of his Polish heritage and language as his son assimilates to Australian culture.
This document analyzes the techniques used in the poem "Feliks Skrzynecki" through discussing various quotes and themes. It explores the reflective tone and point of view of the adult narrator. Key techniques discussed include the use of imagery, similes, metaphors, and dialogue to portray the father Feliks' resilience and strong work ethic despite facing discrimination and the loss of his Polish heritage and language as his son assimilates to Australian culture.
This document analyzes the techniques used in the poem "Feliks Skrzynecki" through discussing various quotes and themes. It explores the reflective tone and point of view of the adult narrator. Key techniques discussed include the use of imagery, similes, metaphors, and dialogue to portray the father Feliks' resilience and strong work ethic despite facing discrimination and the loss of his Polish heritage and language as his son assimilates to Australian culture.
Free verse structure A paean Point of view as adult Reflective tone
Celebration of someones life Reflection on childhood overcame distancing of parents followed by appreciation/fondness of older generation 1 My gentle father My possessive personal pronoun Emotive language gentle Establish personal relationship/affection Kept pace only with the Joneses of his own minds making Clich Metaphor Alliteration Independent, does not understand/conform to society Different perception of belonging Loved his garden like an only child Simile Symbol Devotion/care/possessive/doting/prized/irreplace able garden Recreation of old home New life From sunrise to sleep Alliteration He swept its paths ten times around the world. Hyperbole Gentle humour Emphasises time/effort/care/nurture Reclusive, content with own company (also silent), intelligent, awareness of world 2 Hands darkened from cement, fingers with cracks like the sods he broke Simile Imagery hands fingers arms Imagery darkened cracks Hard soil/physical labour reflects experiences/resilience in life Connection to soil Stereotyped good father/provider I often wondered how he existed on fix or six hours sleep each night why his arms didnt fall off from the soil he turned and the tobacco he rolled. Hyperbole Humour Verbs turned rolled circular motion Irony soil provides peace Admiration for father Personal involvement childs innocence establishes growing up Endless cycle of working 3 His Polish friends They reminisced His they personal pronoun Distanced from Peter Exclusion from relationships/memories Always shook hands too violently, I thought Feliks Skrzynecki, that formal address I never got used to. Visual imagery too violently Italics Caesura reflective Isolation/distance from heritage Discomfort/embarrassment Peter foreign to Polish customs, Feliks sees easy going Australia as strange Ingrained in Aussie culture, cultural divide They reminisced about farms where paddocks flowered with corn and wheat, horses they bred, pigs they were skilled in slaughtering. Imagery Enjambment Descriptive/emotive language flowered slaughtering
Feliks robust life in Poland Allusion to peasant past Sense of belonging to land/strong work ethic Five years of forced labour in Germany did not dull the softness of his blue eyes. Imagery Alliteration Wartime hardship did not break spirit/spark Admiration for father Brutality contrast to pastoral perfection 4 When twice they dig cancer out of his foot, his comment was: but Im alive. Positive tone Direct dialogue Imagery dug Admiration for father a survivor, positive Word choice harsh/violent Reminiscent of garden
5 Remnants of a language I inherited unknowingly First person Tone of appreciation he taught me Imagery of remnants and dash Instinctively linked to cultural knowledge/family preserved but partial No choice in belonging Loss of Polish heritage evident breaks/fragments The curse that damned a crew- cut, grey-haired department clerk who asked me in dancing-bear grunt: Did your father ever attempt to learn English? Compounds Animal imagery contrast to dancing ridicules Dialogue/rhetorical question accusing tone Juxtaposition/irony Bitter/harsh tone Negatively stereotyped contempt/damned Instinctive bond to language/father Admiration of father clear Racial discrimination/prejudice barrier to belonging Tone of clerk suggestive of lazy/uncaring juxtaposed to hardworking Feliks obvious 6 On the back steps of his house, bordered by golden cypress, lawns geraniums younger than both parents Time shift to present his possessive pronoun
Imagery Metaphor Reflective in nature/time development of sons response (also growing older and at thirteen) Sense of time Establishes Australian backyard European plants, perimeter, back steps symbolises a barrier to belonging by creating a haven (bordered) Watching stars and street lights come on Imagery Metaphor Transition from day to night Feliks old age Happy as I have never been Personal pronoun Contrasts Feliks contentment of NB in old age with Peters dissatisfaction in NB/longing for identity Reflection on self, sense of regret, contempt 7 Stumbling over tenses in Caesars Gallic War Allusion Irony Language barriers Classic Latin text language of origin I forgot my first Polish word. He repeated it so I never forgot. Personal pronoun Peter is losing culture, yet Feliks is determined Father-son blood relation is strained, yet regardless of culture their bond is strong Like a dumb prophet Simile Knowing the future but unable to stop it Emphasises language barriers Watched me pegging my tents further and further south of Hadrians Wall. Metaphor pegging my tents Metaphor Hadrians wall Staking own life/trying to find identity English/Scottish wall of separation from Romans defence of independence/culture Moving away from Poland, assimilation into Australian culture Unlike Feliks, who guards heritage with lack of assimilation/NB safe in isolation Barrier to belonging, sense of loss