Romulus My Father Scaffolding

Technique: Switching between first and third person narrative/point of view

Thesis: Gaitas memoir seeks to reflect n influences one has in life that help shape a sense of

identity and a world view

Family:

In order to protect his grandfather from a beating, my father threatened to shoot his uncle-

Conflicting responsibilities for belonging within family unit

Control your wife, she is stealing our husbands-Christines infidelities betray the natural

family unit

She did not care properly for me, andher careless spending undermined his capacity to do

so-Her neglect of her children

A photograph of the period shows Mitruwith me sitting on his chest, my mother beside us

with the demeanour of a young woman with her man and child.-Betrayal of family unit, yet

despite her infidelities she has a sense of connection to family unit

I was glad of her physical, feminine presence, which comforted me more than food-Despite

neglect, Raimond lovingly describes his mother and this reflects the strong nature of

belonging within a family unit

Alone, small, frail, walking with an uncertain gait and distracted air-accumulative

description to convey Christines isolation

I was nervous riding with Mitruwhen I rode with my father, no matter how fast he drove,

I always urged him to drive faster.-Belonging fosters a sense of security within people and

shows Raimonds more secure familial link with his father

My love for Hora and for my father caused confused emotions in me towards either.

Like most Europeans. this phrase sets Romulus apart from the authors perspective.

Our life at Frogmore was Spartan, but I never felt that we were poor-Find example where

rich language is used to contrast Frogmore

If you were to do anything badthe disappointment would kill you father-In close

relationships, the other parties actions can deeply impact the other

strong, bare, sun-darkened arms on either side of me-symbolism of Romulus protection of

Raimond

Working together, our sorrow lightened by the presence of a young girl representing new

life and hope, we came together as son and husband with the woman whose remains lay

beneath us. Juxtaposition of fixing a headstone and the innocence of a child playing suggests

the deep ties that exist in family

I did not resent him for beating my mother. -Distorted family situation, non blood

connections overriding the natural family

Contrast between Mitru and Christines relationship-tending ones wounds one week and a

week later, Mitru driven to suicide

My father wrote only when necessary, addressing my mother, Dear Madam, and signing

himself, R.Gaita. Letters a device to represent the breakdown of family unit and strained

communication. The formal addressing of the letters represent isolation. This communication

breakdown again occurs by the inclusion of Mitrus letter. Romulus relationship with letter

and after his trust is broken, his struggle to compose a letter.

It offended his ideal of respect owed by children to their elders-conflict between first and

second generation migrants

In locu parentis-Term used to indicate the strong family bond with Hora, despite not being

blood relatives

I felt awkward with her/The pathos of it embarrassed and saddened me-Sad tone and

mood to represent detachment

The perspective provoked in me a pity that was both intense and disturbingly detached-

Looking in through window to his mother provides a symbol of detachment

In my heart, I still loved her.-still belonging as Romulus still cared deeply for her despite

separation

Disconnection with mother is explored through negative connotation and by a non emotive

description

told that in law he was as nothing to the children-societies notion of family

I felt for him as though he were part of my family

I was later tormented with guilt...for having denied my father

My relationship with my father had changed because I had asserted my independence.

no sense of extended family

growing isolation/alienated potential visitors

My father was buried close in the Maryborough cemetery, close to my mother.

Culture:

My fatheralways considered himself a Romanian.-Sense of belonging towards a culture

Childhood as we know itdid not exist in that part of the world at that time-this helps to

explain the difference between the first and second generation migrant perspective, as there

were differing expectations of children when Romulus was growing up.

Children contributed to the maintenance of their families and to the welfare of the village-

communal sense of belonging

A little embarrassed by his dark complexion, he called himself a gipsy and later in Australia,

an Aborigine.

made him acceptable to my mothers very German middle class parents, who would have

looked down on the foreigner with his Slavic features

For immigrant men only/Only the Australians could live in it-Separation and different

circumstance than Australians

New Australians given menial manual tasks

They were called the Balts by most Australians-their race is their identify, reflects the lack

of individual identity assigned to immigrants

responding with the instinct of an immigrant unused to the tinder-dry conditions of an

Australian summer./The local newspaper ridiculed the New Australian for his folly

I heard someone speak contemptuously of how Aborigines slept with their dogs for comfort

and warmth-A comfort for Raimond and ties to their association to another marginalised

group in Australian society

A culture whose limitations were partly the reason she could not overcome hers

the concept of self-deception goes so deep in our culture

He thought it a weakness in me.-differences in ideas about changing paths due to first +

second generation gap

Yugoslav divorcee

The division he knew from his childhood, between womens and mens work, played little

role in his life

His respect for her independence was unusual in husbands of his vintage

essential as being truthful about ones identity

his changed status in the community...partly because attitudes to New Australians had

changed.

Im good for nothing.-Low sense of self worth and lack of identity now that Romulus can

no longer work

European custom

Memory:

The novel is a memoir, so it is written with hindsight.

Non linear narrative

But he still longed, and longed all his life, for the European conviviality he knew as a young

man

Shows Raimonds childhood perspective versus his experienced perspective

Very detached narrative style, only poetic when describing landscape motif

Juxtaposition of Christines neglect and Raimonds feelings for her

Uses reported speech for emphasis

Place:

Though the landscape is one of rare beauty, to a European or English eye it seems desolate,

and even after forty years my father could not become reconciled to it

He longed for the generous and soft European foliage, but the eucalypts of

Baringupseemed symbols of deprivation and barrenness.-Landscape symbolic of isolation

A dead red gum stood only a hundred metres from the house and became for my mother a

symbol of her desolation

Peppercornswere planted as though to mediate between local and European landscapes./

The mid green of their herringbone leaves evoked the colours of colder climates while their

gnarled trunks and branches introduced one to the starkly delineated silhouettes of the native

landscape.

Frogmore-potential place of belonging for Raimond

A troubled city girl from Central Europe, she could not settle in a dilapidated farmhouse that

highlighted her isolation.

She longed for company-Human instinct to crave belonging

In the vast landscape, with only crude wire fences and a rough track to mark human

impression on it she appeared forsaken.

The key to the beauty of the native trees lay in the light which so sharply delineated them

against a dark blue sky./My perception of the landscape changed radically as when one

sees the second image in an ambiguous drawing-move to teenage independence and to

experience. The scraggy shapes and sparse foliage actually became the foci for my sense of

beauty-The landscape symbolic nature is used to demonstrate the cultural and generation

barriers between Raimond and Romulus

He felt like a prisoner in Australia-Simile to show Romulus feelings of isolation

immigrants were tolerated

It never seriously occurred to them to call my father his name, Romulus. They called him

Jack.

provided the wrong conceptual environment for her to find herself and for others to

understand her-notions of self identity and place shaping belonging

Trade in for normal life away from Frogmore in Maryborough

gave colour to my freedom

Spartan disposition-same adjective used to describe place and personality

open forms of conviviality that characterised European hospitality as he knew it.

After what we had shared at Frogmore, no quarrel could estrange us.

Relationships:

After she gave birth to me, she showed signs of an illness-Tension placed on all Christines

relationships with others due to her mental illness

lifelong friendship-between Hora and Romulus, forged by having similar contextual

backgrounds

Their individuality was inseparable from their talk/I learnt from them the connection

between individuality and character-a strongly formed identity is needed before you can

meaningfully engage with others

Both troubled by identity-Romulus and Hora

Plato allusion those who love and seek wisdom are clinging in recollection to things they

once saw-Meaningful friendship due to sharing core values, and Raimond experiencing this

Work used as a metaphor to describe Romulus character

...he belonged to a long tradition of European thought which celebrated a community of

equals-found a sense of belonging through his character, shown by his workmanship

Prayer for the Dead allusion

under its sway should be prepared to be destroyed by it

Victoria Market where he savoured the bustle.

His strength of character needed the right kind of nurturing to function...I believe that was

given to by the relative stability of his life with Milka.

Spirituality:

nourished his deeply religious spirit throughout his life

instinctive reverence for the solemnity of church ritual and artefacts, even when he later

became suspicious of institutional religion and prone to anti-clericalism

Foreshadowing: that he would lose his wife an suffer greatly

Jesus who appeared to her bloody and showing the wounds of his crucifixion/ This child I

am carrying will suffer-Ideas of fate expressed

ferociously anticlerical. He spoke, however, with respect and affection for Christianitys

ethical vision-Hora having similar values to Romulus

no one remained as steadfast as my father in his disdain of superficialities, in his honesty

and his concern for others

He believed that those who were genuinely religious felt no need to distinguish themselves

from others in such ways.

Barriers to belonging:

She was only sixteen years old and he was twenty two/My father cared for none of these

and mistook my mothers enjoyment of them for snobbishness, a fault he detested even

then-disparity between backgrounds and age of Christine and Romulus

Denied university study because they refused to join the Communist Party-Choosing to not

belong

My father, Hora and, I think, Mitru, did not appreciate the degree to which my mothers life

and behaviour were affected by her psychological illness.-lack of understanding of mental

illness was a barrier to belonging. Ties into the 1950s context of novel and expectations of

women at this time.

In his sighs I heard our isolation and for the first time I felt estranged from the area

growing desire to lead a normal life/strengthened by the conformist aspirations of

teenage culture

dependent on institutional living

Unconformity to school rules