Belonging: Indigenous Australians and Sense Essay

Words: 1340
Pages: 6

You are to write a speechto present at a conference titled "Perceptions of Belonging."
Your speech should discuss HOW Peter Skrzynecki and another composer explore the following statement:
"To feel a sense of belonging, you need to accept yourself and be accepted by others."
Refer to TWO Skrzynecki poems and ONE of the related texts from your portfolio.
What is the meaning to belong? One’s perception of belonging may vary throughout their lifetime. Though generally, to belong is to be accepted and to develop a sense of satisfaction, security and stability through a variety of ways within one’s life. In contrast to not belong is to be experiencing a sense of rejection, alienation and isolation. A sense of belonging usually emerges from
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Skrzynecki effectively illustrates how on one hand, his father experiences rejection and alienation experienced by many older migrants at the time from the world around him, his friends continue to provide him with a source of belonging, in contrast to himself who experiences neither.
The first stanza beings with the line, ‘My gentle father’ which shows a touching opening for the text and the use of ‘My’ also demonstrates the son’s feeling of the father belonging to him. Skrzynecki effectively portrays the boundaries faced by his father through the use of exaggeration, “Spent years walking it’s perimeter”, which is further explored within the poem because he is a migrant.
Peter continues to emphasise the connection created for his father by his culture through the use of the possessive pronoun ‘His’ in ‘His Polish friends’, also stating a cultural reference and showing how the son feels as if he doesn’t belong. Within this group they continue to portray their acceptance towards each other. ‘Talking, they reminisced…’ this line further illustrating how this group of men hold a shared past and highlighting the sense of ‘brotherhood’ within their group.
Skrzynecki as he grows older begins to feel more distant from his father, and a sense of disconnection to his father through the