The aspect of emotional challenge of adapting, assimilating and coping with change is coexistent within the migrant experience, the persona struggling to reconcile Polish and Australian life and to regulate emotional and cultural incongruities. Skrzynecki harnesses a dichotomy within ‘Feliks Skrzynecki’; that of identification and disunited belonging. The persona faces the emotional challenge of adhering to his Polish connection whilst adjusting to Australian values, and this is directly contrasted to his father’s stoicism in confronting adversity and synthesising both cultures to a medial platform of contentment. Evidence of this is divulged in the exclusive tone of ‘With his dog… happy as I have never been’. This illuminates the sense of disconnection and grief the persona experiences when reflecting on his father’s life. Feliks’ bliss …show more content…
Emotional struggle and self-imposed alienation are emphasised in ‘Like a dumb prophet, watched me pegging my tents further and further south of Hadrian’s Wall’. The historical allusion of ‘Hadrian’s Wall’ represents a rich, complex symbol of defence mechanisms, traditions, and European ways, and draws attention to the literal barrier that Peter self-imposes to his father. ‘Tent’ described in the quote denotes a sense of impermanent residence, and ‘dumb prophet’ pertains that Feliks was helpless in preventing Peter’s inevitable loss of cultural affiliation arising from adolescence. In moving away from ‘Hadrian’s Wall’, Peter shifts away from Northern European culture and towards the Southern Australian culture, highlighting his inability to synchronise his Polish and Australian identities. Peter’s reluctance and resistance to alter his life to cater both cultures is denigrated and contributes to his emotional burdens of alienation, isolation, and lack of