Belonging Essay

Area of Study: Belonging
Immigrant Chronicle by Peter Skrzynecki | Sweeney Todd directed by Tim Burton |

“In order to belong, we must adapt to challenges in life”

Truly, “In order to belong we must adapt to challenges in life”
Before I go on, Human Beings are one of the species that don’t like change. We prefer to play it safe, and stay in our own comfort zones. And when tackling change as such leaving one’s homeland for varied reasons, including a desire for better opportunities or to escape persecution, poverty or conflict. It instantly becomes a rather constant tackling challenge to adapt to. Like so, poet ‘Peter Skrzynecki’ in “Immigrant Chronicle” visibly demonstrates his struggle to feel united with his own parents, it also demonstrates his struggle to feel united with the world that is different to his parent’s or ancestor’s. Like so, another text “Sweeney Todd” 2007 directed by Tim Burton focuses on the negative impact of forced imprisonment and reflects this negative impact as a result of Sweeney’s inability to generate a sense of “us” after he was freed from imprisonment.
The poem “Felix Skrzynecki” initiates the readers with a personal pronoun by the poet “My” “My gentle father” instantly establishing their filial relationship, establishing the poet’s admiration towards his father, and even suggests that there is a longing in the poet to belong to his father’s world. Nevertheless as the poem proceeds into the father’s world the language within the poem swifts with the use of “I” thoroughly throughout the poem until the end. It hints the readers of impossibility for the poet to feel embraced in his father’s garden.
“Immigrants Chronicle” by Peter Skrzynecki is a text that includes many poems thoroughly highlighting the absence of belonging in the poet’s life, the poets struggle to belong to any of the two worlds; one being his father’s world and equally, the other being his world, a world that is different to his parent’s and ancestor’s....