Many Different Ways of Feeling Belonging

The following sample essay on Many Different Ways of Feeling Belonging. The more people understand about the hardships that someone has been through can promote them to feel a sense of belonging to a group or community. These lacks in understanding are evident throughout Peter Skrzynecki’s poems, they include his lack of belonging to the Australian culture because of his heritage, how he feels that he will never truly find the same sense of belonging as his father and his lack of belonging to school due to a lack of undersdtanding.

This lack of understanding is also evident within “Happy Feet”, nobody understands how Mumble is different they just ridicule him for his difference. Within Peter Skrzynecki’s poem “St Patricks College” we can see that he feels a sense of alienation because people don’t understand the hardships that he has been through in coming to Australia from war torn Poland.

This sense of not belonging can have a great effect on someone’s life, which can lead to them start to believe that no matter where they go they are unwelcomed or unwanted.

Peter Skrzynecki feels this sense of alienation due to the lack of understanding from those around him, when he talks about his daily bus trips to and from school he says, “Like a foreign tourist, uncertain of my destination every time I get off”. The use of the simile shows us that because of the lack of understanding within the Australian culture he feels like an outsider no matter where he goes.

Get quality help now

Doctor Jennifer

Verified

Proficient in: Communication

5 (893)

“ Thank you so much for accepting my assignment the night before it was due. I look forward to working with you moving forward ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

The use of “Foreign tourist”, tells us that because of the lack of understanding of what immigrants have been through in leaving their home because of the war, Peter Skrzynecki never truly feels as if he belongs within the walls of St Patrick’s College. We can see that from the lack of understanding within the Australian society Skrzynecki feels like an outside due to his Polish heritage this greatly diminishes his sense of belong.

Within Peter Skrzynecki’s poem “Post Cards” we can see that his lack of understanding of where he came from and where he belongs too severely diminished his sense of belong to Poland.This detachment due to lack of understanding can have a great effect on someone’s life, it can make them feels as if they will never find a place to call home or somewhere where they truly fell as if they belong. This lack of understand by Skrzynecki is shown when he talks about home much his parents belong to Poland but yet he never could he says “My father will be proud of your domes and towers, My mother will speak of her beloved Ukraine. What’s my choice to be? ”. The use of the rhetorical question “what’s my choice to be”, shows us that due to his lack of understanding of Poland he never believes that he will truly ever belong to Poland.

This uncertainty of belonging due to lack of understanding make Peter Skrzynecki feel as if he will never belong to Poland because of his lack of cultural heritage which interns leads Skrzynecki to believe that he will never truly belong to Poland because he does not have that connection to the land like his father. Peter Skrzynecki fells the struggle to belong to the school that he attended due to his lack of understanding. This sense of struggling to belong due to lack of understanding greatly affected his perception on belonging, Skrzynecki felt as if he never truly belongs within the school.Peter Skrzynecki fells this sense of struggling to connect when he talks about the last days of his school life he says “With my eyes closed I fervently counted the seventy – eight pages of my Venite Adoremus”.

This shows us that Peter Skrzynecki was anxious to leave the school and find a place where he didn’t struggle to belong to. The use of “fervently counted”, shows us that he is completely disconnected form what is happening around him and does not comprehend the severity of the situation.We can see that Skrzynecki’s struggle to belong has had a great impact on his sense of not belonging to the school. The lack of understanding can have detrimental effects on someone’s sense of belonging and may force them to leave and seek out some place where they might just fins this sense of worth and belonging. This is evident with the Disney movie “Happy Feet”, Mumble is forced to leave his family just because of the others penguins lack of understanding of just because someone is different that they are to blame form everything that has gone wrong.

This lack of understanding is shown when the elder penguin says to Mumble “you Mumble happy feet must go”, this shows that the lack of understanding from the elder penguin has led to all the other penguins blaming Mumble for the misfortunes. This lack of understanding of Mumble has makes him believe that he no longer belongs to the colony so have must try and find his own place where he truly feels as if he belongs.As you can see that there are many different circumstance that can lead to somebody feeling as if they don’t belong due to their lack of understanding of the situation or the severity of a certain place or event. This lack of understanding is illustrated within Peter Skrzynecki’s poems ‘Immigrant Chronicles and within the animated film ‘ Happy Feet’ they both show excellent examples of situation where different people have felt a lack of belong theour a lack of understanding within different situations.