Shaun Tan's Language Techniques

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Peter Skrzynecki and Shaun Tan Interview I = Interviewer P = Peter Skrzynecki S = Shaun Tan I: Welcome back to KBB FM. We’re now joined by two very special guests. They are both renowned authors for their works in areas of belonging and alienation: Peter Skrzynecki and Shaun Tan. Welcome to the show. P & S: Thank you for having us. I: Let’s start with Peter. Peter, you’ve obviously written the Immigrant Chronicles, a famous series of poems detailing your life after moving to Australia. These poems predominantly deal with ideas of belonging, alienation and barriers to belonging. Out of these seven poems, which would you say most represent these ideas? P: All of the poems featured in the Immigrant Chronicles revolve around some concept…show more content…
Feliks Skrzynecki is a paean poem detailing my views on my father as a stoic, hard-working man who scarcely complained. ‘My gentle father’ and ‘I never once heard him complain of work’ show his stoicism and character. Despite his hard-working nature, my father faced hardships or barriers to belonging due to his lack of knowledge of the English language. A scene I vividly remember – which is expressed in the poem – is when a ‘department clerk, who asked me in dancing-bear grunts: “did your father ever attempt to learn English?”’. The direct speech in the poem emphasises this barrier to belonging, the barrier being a combination of the lack of English my father spoke and understood, as well as the impatience and negative attitude towards migrants by some Australians at that time period. This resulted in my father being isolated from the Australian community and its culture. I: We’ll switch gears now to Shaun. Shaun, in your graphic novel The Arrival, a scene in the novel is similar to the situation Peter’s father Feliks faced. Could you elaborate further on that please, and just give a brief description of the…show more content…
It is evident throughout the poem that I did not enjoy my time at school, and that it was a very dark period in my life; I had no interest or desire for it. The repetition of ‘for eight years’ and ‘saw equations I never understood’ are quotes from the poem that showed my dislike and apathy towards school. You can also see that no mention of social interaction with people is in the poem, showing my feelings of alienation and isolation from the school and the people within it, further demonstrating that it was a dark period. Light comes into the poem when I read the school motto Luceat Lux Vestra, or ‘let your light shine’. I sarcastically state that ‘I thought [the motto] was a brand of soap’, showing my disconnection with the concept of belonging as enlightenment, and my gross alienation from the school. However, towards the end of the poem and my schooling years, it becomes evident that the future holds bright opportunities, and that ‘the darkness around me wasn’t “for the best” before I let my light shine’. I finally move on from the darkness that was the past, and look ahead to my bright future. If you were to illustrate this scene, it would look like graphic in Shaun’s novel. The scenarios are very similar, as both protagonists must move on from the past in order to continue along the pathway to a new sense of belonging and enlightenment, and that it is time to ‘let [their] light
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