10 Mary Street Analysis

Question
The struggle to belong and to find one’s place is significant in the lives of some people. In what ways is this struggle represented in your prescribed text and at least ONE other related text of your choosing. Response The struggle to belong is more significant in the lives of some people than in the lives of others. In the poetry of Immigrant chronicle (IC), for the persona of “Feliks Skryznecki”(“FS”) the struggle to belong is more significant than it is for his father Similarly in the song Tenterfield saddler(TS) by Peter Allen the persona’s struggle to belong is more significant than that of his grandfather. However, in “10 Mary street” (“10MS”) the persona’s struggle is insignificant. The persona’s father “Feliks” in
In this regard the struggle to belong is not significant for Feliks, as he has found his place. The persona, however, struggles to belong in the same way that Feliks, his father, belongs. This is most apparent where the persona recounts “On the back steps of his house,…///My father sits out…/With his dog, smoking, /Watching stars and street lights… /Happy as I have never been.” Here a sense of belonging is once again represented by way of a collage that culminates in the luminous imagery of “stars and street lights”. These things combine to convey with a certainty that Feliks had found his “place” in the comfort of his home and as a result was “Happy”. But at this point the belonging Feliks enjoys is already largely established, so this representation of belonging has greater effect in that it contrasts with the son’s situation. Whilst the list of images suggest the desire of the son to have what Feliks has, it is the final line
In doing this it highlights that the persona is not happy as his father is happy and therefore implies that he does not belong in the same way but, as stated above, wishes to. This lack of belonging is also suggested where the persona relates “That formal address/ I never got used to.” The use of absolute adverb “never” is particularly emphatic in portraying the inability of the persona to belong to his father’s social group and culture, of which the “Polish friends” and “formal address” are part. Hence it is evident that in a numbers of aspects the persona did not belong, and while his wish to belong is not announced explicitly, but the struggle to do so is clear. The struggle to belong is, therefore, significant at least in aspects of belonging pertaining to place and family (as the struggle to belong is needless to say a two way relationship between father and son) in the life of the persona. In saying this, it can be concluded that the struggle to belong is more significant in the lives of some people than in the lives of others. In TS, “George Woolnogh”, the saddler, experiences social, historical and cultural belonging in a similar way to Feliks.. In the song George Woolnogh is said to have “sat on his verandah,” where for