Relationships In The Sapphires

An individual’s surroundings such as his or her physical environments, relationships with others and experiences shape their identity and cause individual’s identity to continually change. This notion of evolving identity is illustrated in the film, ‘The Sapphires’ directed by Wayne Blair, where four Aboriginal girls go on a tour around Vietnam, experiencing different events and develop relationships that reshape their identity. Similarly, in Peter Skrzynecki's poem ‘Feliks Skrzynecki’ Feliks and Peter adapt to different environments which affects their relationship and subsequently, their identity. These Australian texts both experience conflicts in identity and convey how an individual’s identities are shaped by an individual’s relationship …show more content…
In the film, ‘The Sapphires’, Gail is characterised as a woman has a strong aboriginal identity. She is the oldest child and this shapes her as a responsible and protective individual. At the start of the film, Gail is very hostile towards Dave, as she makes the stereotyped judgement that he will be racist, based upon her previous negative experiences with white Australians. The use of medium shot and reverse shot (camera flicking) between Dave and Gail at the pub establishes a tension as seen through their facial expression of hatred. However, their relationship positively develops during the war as Gail’s identity evolves when Dave states ‘You’re a mama bear and they’re your baby cubs’, the soft string instrument background music accompanying the close up shot of Dave creates a warm and gentle atmosphere. The subsequent mid shot employed to highlight their intimate body language in the scene where Gail and Dave are seen to be joined by the hip and kiss each other. Gail’s relationship and subsequent change in perspective leads to at her evolving identity as she becomes less aggressive and grows her trust in …show more content…
The transition into adulthood, we encounter conflicts in our identity. In the poem, cultural difference is portrayed between the persona who is assimilated more into Australian culture and his father whose identity is intricately linked with his Polish culture and his migrant experiences. In ‘His Polish friends Always shook hands too violently..’, the negative connotation of the adverb ‘violently’, suggest that the son is not comfortable with the situation and shows his lack of understanding of the cultural practices of the Polish greeting. The metaphor in ‘Stumbling over tenses in Caesar’s Gallic War, I forgot my first Polish word’, conveys Peter’s loss of heritage or identity through his Westernised schooling and education. He is moving ‘further and further south of Hadrian’s wall’ which the wall symbolises a cultural barrier between his father and himself exposing that their relationship has been influenced by the Polish culture which has guided Peter into confusion about his identity. The persona disassociates himself from his father and the Polish culture as he submerges himself to the Australian culture. Consequently, cultural difference influenced Peter’s identity as he finds it difficulties in his cultural heritage as he gets