Feliks Skrzynecki Techniques

Quote Technique Explanation

Free verse structure
A paean
Point of view as adult
Reflective tone

Celebration of someones life
Reflection on childhood overcame distancing of
parents followed by appreciation/fondness of
older generation
1 My gentle father My possessive personal
pronoun
Emotive language gentle
Establish personal relationship/affection
Kept pace only with the
Joneses of his own minds
making
Clich
Metaphor
Alliteration
Independent, does not understand/conform to
society
Different perception of belonging
Loved his garden like an only
child
Simile
Symbol
Devotion/care/possessive/doting/prized/irreplace
able garden
Recreation of old home
New life
From sunrise to sleep Alliteration
He swept its paths ten times
around the world.
Hyperbole
Gentle humour
Emphasises time/effort/care/nurture
Reclusive, content with own company (also
silent), intelligent, awareness of world
2 Hands darkened from cement,
fingers with cracks like the
sods he broke
Simile
Imagery hands fingers
arms
Imagery darkened cracks
Hard soil/physical labour reflects
experiences/resilience in life
Connection to soil
Stereotyped good father/provider
I often wondered how he
existed on fix or six hours
sleep each night why his
arms didnt fall off from the
soil he turned and the tobacco
he rolled.
Hyperbole
Humour
Verbs turned rolled
circular motion
Irony soil provides peace
Admiration for father
Personal involvement childs innocence establishes
growing up
Endless cycle of working
3 His Polish friends
They reminisced
His they personal pronoun Distanced from Peter
Exclusion from relationships/memories
Always shook hands too
violently, I thought Feliks
Skrzynecki, that formal
address I never got used to.
Visual imagery too violently
Italics
Caesura reflective
Isolation/distance from heritage
Discomfort/embarrassment
Peter foreign to Polish customs, Feliks sees easy going
Australia as strange
Ingrained in Aussie culture, cultural divide
They reminisced about farms
where paddocks flowered with
corn and wheat, horses they
bred, pigs they were skilled in
slaughtering.
Imagery
Enjambment
Descriptive/emotive language
flowered slaughtering


Feliks robust life in Poland
Allusion to peasant past
Sense of belonging to land/strong work ethic
Five years of forced labour in
Germany did not dull the
softness of his blue eyes.
Imagery
Alliteration
Wartime hardship did not break spirit/spark
Admiration for father
Brutality contrast to pastoral perfection
4 When twice they dig cancer
out of his foot, his comment
was: but Im alive.
Positive tone
Direct dialogue
Imagery dug
Admiration for father a survivor, positive
Word choice harsh/violent
Reminiscent of garden

5 Remnants of a language I
inherited unknowingly
First person
Tone of appreciation he
taught me
Imagery of remnants and
dash
Instinctively linked to cultural knowledge/family
preserved but partial
No choice in belonging
Loss of Polish heritage evident
breaks/fragments
The curse that damned a crew-
cut, grey-haired department
clerk who asked me in
dancing-bear grunt: Did your
father ever attempt to learn
English?
Compounds
Animal imagery contrast to
dancing ridicules
Dialogue/rhetorical question
accusing tone
Juxtaposition/irony
Bitter/harsh tone
Negatively stereotyped contempt/damned
Instinctive bond to language/father
Admiration of father clear
Racial discrimination/prejudice barrier to
belonging
Tone of clerk suggestive of lazy/uncaring
juxtaposed to hardworking Feliks obvious
6 On the back steps of his house,
bordered by golden cypress,
lawns geraniums younger
than both parents
Time shift to present
his possessive pronoun

Imagery
Metaphor
Reflective in nature/time development of sons
response (also growing older and at thirteen)
Sense of time
Establishes Australian backyard
European plants, perimeter, back steps
symbolises a barrier to belonging by creating a
haven (bordered)
Watching stars and street
lights come on
Imagery
Metaphor
Transition from day to night Feliks old age
Happy as I have never been Personal pronoun Contrasts Feliks contentment of NB in old age
with Peters dissatisfaction in NB/longing for
identity
Reflection on self, sense of regret, contempt
7 Stumbling over tenses in
Caesars Gallic War
Allusion
Irony
Language barriers
Classic Latin text language of origin
I forgot my first Polish word.
He repeated it so I never
forgot.
Personal pronoun Peter is losing culture, yet Feliks is determined
Father-son blood relation is strained, yet regardless of
culture their bond is strong
Like a dumb prophet Simile Knowing the future but unable to stop it
Emphasises language barriers
Watched me pegging my tents
further and further south of
Hadrians Wall.
Metaphor pegging my tents
Metaphor Hadrians wall
Staking own life/trying to find identity
English/Scottish wall of separation from
Romans defence of independence/culture
Moving away from Poland, assimilation into
Australian culture
Unlike Feliks, who guards heritage with lack of
assimilation/NB safe in isolation
Barrier to belonging, sense of loss