Social_Relationships,_Regarding_Felicks_Skrzynecki_and_St_Patrick's_College

Social relationships, particularly those of family, play a vital role in the development of an individual’s sense of belonging in the world” discuss Social relationships particularly with family provide an incentive for most individuals to achieve the best in life. The poems Felicks Skrzynecki and St. Patrick’s college both explore the failure of meeting expectations which create a failure within their own mind causing a loss of identity. Similarly the poem Kindness by Sylvia Plath conveys the idea of an individual who cannot belong but ultimately finds a sense of belonging in the world through family. In order to belong socially, two or more individuals would have to come to a true understanding of one another, otherwise contradictory ideas would create a rift causing the relationship to break apart. For example in the poem Felick’s Skrzynecki, the composer creates a deep affection for the father-son relationship as shown in the opening of the poem “my gentle father”. The use of the personal pronoun “my” is highly significant because it indicates that he feels a deep personal attachment to his father, as is the adjective “gentle” also shows that the speaker doesn’t fear his father’s authority but rather respects him. Yet the speaker “inherits a language unknowingly”, where he has no say about his cultural heritage. The father expects the speaker to accept the heritage and embrace it. But in the poem Postcard, the speaker asks the question “What more do you want besides the gift of despair'” This suggests a sense of loss and alienation. He can’t offer anything because he ‘gave’ the Polish heritage all of his feelings. The problem is, all these feelings were negative connotations in the first place, where these negative connotations are found throughout the series of poems by Peter Skrzynecki. The composer called it a “gift” of despair, gift meaning it was given to him. As human beings we are all obligated to accept things from others, whether we want it or not. In the speaker’s case the “gift” of Polish inheritance is a burden, the speaker never wanted it in the first place. Due to the speaker being incapable of accepting his inheritance, he begins to “peg his tents further south of Hadrian ’s Wall”. This complex metaphor captures the pain of the speaker as he loses emotional and intellectual touch with his father’s cultural world, where the father symbolises Hadrian’s wall as it alludes to his father’s qualities of strength and patience whilst also symbolising his inability to adapt to his new country and cultural change. The oxymoron “dumb prophet” is ironic because it suggests the frustration of his father who can foresee the destruction of their relationship but is powerless to prevent it from occurring. The bitterness in which the speaker suffers is further portrayed in the poem St Patrick’s College by Peter Skrzynecki. The resentment is strongly suggested in the line “I carried the blue, black and gold I’d been privileged to wear”, where the word “privilege” can both mean honour earned through achievements or a position attained through money. The speaker infers that he doesn’t deserve to wear the school uniform because he is extremely disengaged from the environment and thus a slow learning student who is enrolled at the school due to the money his mother is paying. The poor opinion of himself is further confirmed through his listing of abilities such as saying the “lord’s prayer in one breath”, which suggests the speaker has trouble gaining the recognition of his peers so he resorts to tricks rather than useful skills to progress with in life. The school contains the motto Luceat Lux Vestra (Let your light shine) which creates a reputation of promoting the students to fulfil their truth path in life. Yet the speaker believes that due to his lack of knowledge, he couldn’t find the motivational force to achieve this goal. He believes it “wasn’t for the best” as he feels he let himself down, with the sense of failure he “prays that (his) mother would ... be pleased”. The speaker feels guilty as his mother financially sacrificed herself for the speaker but believes it “wasn’t for the best”. This highlights the sense of guilt and failure because it is clear from the speaker’s point of view that his time at school was “not for the best”. This observation gives additional emotional weight to the phrase “darkness around me”, which symbolises the speaker’s sense of intellectual and spiritual alienation which he thinks his parents “expect” from him. The poem Kindness by Sylvia Plath explores the concept of having your family to support you even when times are hard. Kindness is personified as a woman who is kind on the outside but not within. This is the sense given due to the use of intense diction “in the windows, mirrors which are filled with smiles”. This suggests that the speaker lacks an understanding with other people as they ‘judge a book by its cover’. Furthermore, the vivid imagery produced in the second stanza portrays the lack of identity within self. The word “desperate” describes the pressure the speaker is experiencing, so the speaker considers to “anesthetize”, which means to have all your feelings including pain be taken away, a temporary sleep, which may suggest suicide. This speaker is so lost without a sense of identity that she doesn’t know how to deal with her problems. To further describe her insecurity, the word “Japanese” shows the speaker is talking about a subject with no understanding of. This shows the confusion and vulnerability in which she is experiencing. Despite the speaker’s desperation increasing throughout the final stanza, a glimmer of hope appears as the responder can tell that the barrier that holds the speaker from suicide is the children. “You leave me two children, two roses”. With two roses metaphorically symbolising the two children, they have potential to grow up and become beautiful like a rose, this suggests that the speaker can’t leave behind her family as they are like gifts to her in which she loves. Overall, all three texts contain a development of a social relationship, particularly family which plays a vital role in belonging to the world. Ultimately, by failing expectations set by family members, an individual will force pressure upon themselves which eventually develops a sense of failure and alienation within one’s mind. This sense of alienation causes a rift within a relationship as misunderstandings are created. Even when situations seem tough, an individual would always be allowed to return to the social relationship to support and give a sense of security despite the rift which broke the bond place due to the initial feelings which created the closeness would most likely never disappear as important beings always leave a foot print in an individuals heart.