Belonging with Feliks

Belonging is a sense of security and happiness that build up upon people’s connections to people, place and culture. In the novel China Coin and the poem Feliks Skrzynecki both the composers use a combination of inclusive language, simile and connotation to convey a message that in order to generate a sense of belonging and therefore, experience ‘belonging’, peopl need to share the common understanding created by shared language and culture.

Firstly, the connections between family members facilitate teenagers’ belonging perspectives in their childhood. In the poem Feliks Skryznecki, the persona recall his dad Feliks with inclusive and personal language by simply calling him ‘My gentle father’. It provides a son’s impression towards his father as a soft and gentle man and thereby, creates a connection between son and father. However, simile is used in the first stanza, fourth line as Skrzynecki confesses ‘Love his garden like an only child’. Feliks’ garden is portrayed as an only child in the family by Skrzynecki which conveys a sense of jealousy experienced by the son. More importantly, as a recurring symbol in the poem collection, the garden represents a secured shelter for the Skrzyneckis and perhaps a crucial part of Polish culture. Nevertheless, it is this part of the cultural heritage that Skrzynecki finds it most difficult to relate to. Therefore, Peter demonstrate a feeling of confusion and frustration in his childhood when he tried to understand his father and his culture. Similarly, the generation gap between the migrants in their children is also illustrated in the opening page of the China which creates a barrier for the persona Leah to belong. In the opening page, Leah said, ‘I’ve been kidnapped by an evil aunt.’ metaphor, as a figurative language is used to portray mother Joan as an evil from daughter’s perspective, suggesting that rifts must have occurred in the mother-daughter relationship. Thus, it is perhaps fair to suggest that the lack of an...