Feliks Skrzynecki
...press the way he feels about his father. “My gentle father” therefore indicates to the reader the good relationship that the poet has with his father because he used positive qualities to describe his father. The old phrase used in the line, “Kept pace only with the Joneses” means trying to keep up and achieve the same wealth with the people around you, but the person says that his father has “his own mind’s making.”. The poet here is saying that his father was not like that, and he does not let others persuade him. His father has his own mind and this is why the poet admired him. The poet also described his father’s love for him saying that he “Loved his garden like an only child.” The father’s great love for his garden is a huge as his love for his son therefore this line indicates to the readers the father’s great love for the poet and also the good relationship between them. The poet also admired his father for the hard work his father had done, shown on the lines “I wondered how he existed / On five or six hours’ sleep each night / Why his arms didn’t fall off”. He wondered how his father could work very hard, sleep very little and not seem tired at all. The above quotes show the readers examples of what the persona admired his father for. The childlike expression “why his arms didn’t fall off” indicates to the readers that the poet was writing about the young stage in his life. It helps the readers identify the journey that takes place as he changes his perspective towards his father as he grew up which is written further in the poem. The poet’s perspective of his father started to change during his youth. This is also when another concept of inner journey is raised. When someone moves from one country to another as a child, they find it difficult to keep their old culture and rather adapt to another culture in their new environment. As a result, they often journey away from their parent’s culture. This is experienced by the poet when he moved from Poland to Australia. He found it difficult to identify with his Polish roots, which is why he moves away from his father’s Polish culture and start to adapt to the Australian culture. As a result of the poet’s journey away from his parent’s culture he starts to see his father differently. The poet found it difficult to identify with his family’s past and he sees this past in his father, which is why he placed all the bitterness on his father. He became embarrassed of his father because his father was still very Polish, shown on in the lines “…Feliks Skryznecki / That formal address I never got used to”. In Poland, people always used their full names and the poet did not like it because it was unlike the Australia culture that he had become familiar with. This line is the representation of the culture that the persona’s father still kept, but disliked by the persona himself. The use of formal language in that line shows another different stage of the persona’s life, that he is growing up, and the tone used reflects his changing attitude toward his father, as well as shame of his father’s culture. It indicates the journey of the poet’s perspective towards his father as it changes from admiration to shame, and even anger. This is also shown on the line “Talking they reminisced/ About farms where paddock flowered/ With corn and wheat/ Horse they bred, pigs”. The sarcasm present in the lines in which he was talking about his father reflects the persona’s displeasure with his father. Nevertheless, as the poet matures his perspective towards his father changes and the admiration for his father returned. The persona admired his father for the optimism that he has, shown on the lines “I never once heard him complain of work… or pain. When twice/ they dug cancer…. ‘but I’m alive’”. Even though his father had cancer, he never complained and remained optimistic. The quotes above are examples of what the poet admired his father for and the tone used is full of admiration for his father, which shows the changes take took place in the way he sees his father. He also starts to understand the differences between him and his father and he could see the happiness and contentment of his father. He realized that the way he sees his father had been wrong all these time while he was growing up, but as time passes he understands his fa...