Belonging Speech 20/20
How do links between individuals, groups and places affect the way we identify with a culture? This sense of attachment or alienation is explored through the poem 10 Mary Street by Peter Skrzynecki, An Na’s novel A Step from Heaven and an image I have created, titled “A Missing Piece”. Skrzynecki and An Na, through their depictions of the immigrant experience, show that positive relationships of acceptance and understanding are fundamental to forging cultural connections. As such, these texts illustrate the hardships that arise when such connections are denied in an unfamiliar environment.
10 Mary Street by Peter Skrzynecki demonstrates the importance of place to our identities through the childhood memories of Skrzynecki, who displays a sense of cultural alienation due to his Polish heritage. Their home on 10 Mary Street is a small space of security in an otherwise foreign land. This familiarity is evoked through vivid garden imagery, and we can picture “rows of sweet corn; Tended roses and camellias” which his parents care for “like adopted children”. The simile emphasises the parent’s affection for the garden, which they have cultivated and grown together as family. In essence it has become a piece of their homeland, suggested by the tableau in Stanza 4 of a family gathering, where people “[eat] Kielbasa, salt herrings/ And rye bread, drank/ Raw vodka”. The accumulation of traditional Polish foods represent their attempts to “[keep] pre-war Europe alive” and maintain their cultural identity.
However, the tone shifts in the last stanza to evoke the difficulties of transitioning into a new culture, and we are also shown the fragile nature of this belonging, as they “became citizens of the soil/ That was feeding [them]”, they have lost their cultural identity. A negatively toned enjambment in the lines “Inheritors of a key/ That’ll open no house/ When this one is pulled down” sets a strong contrast with the previous lines to highlight the alienation that comes
10 Mary Street by Peter Skrzynecki demonstrates the importance of place to our identities through the childhood memories of Skrzynecki, who displays a sense of cultural alienation due to his Polish heritage. Their home on 10 Mary Street is a small space of security in an otherwise foreign land. This familiarity is evoked through vivid garden imagery, and we can picture “rows of sweet corn; Tended roses and camellias” which his parents care for “like adopted children”. The simile emphasises the parent’s affection for the garden, which they have cultivated and grown together as family. In essence it has become a piece of their homeland, suggested by the tableau in Stanza 4 of a family gathering, where people “[eat] Kielbasa, salt herrings/ And rye bread, drank/ Raw vodka”. The accumulation of traditional Polish foods represent their attempts to “[keep] pre-war Europe alive” and maintain their cultural identity.
However, the tone shifts in the last stanza to evoke the difficulties of transitioning into a new culture, and we are also shown the fragile nature of this belonging, as they “became citizens of the soil/ That was feeding [them]”, they have lost their cultural identity. A negatively toned enjambment in the lines “Inheritors of a key/ That’ll open no house/ When this one is pulled down” sets a strong contrast with the previous lines to highlight the alienation that comes