“ Examine the ‘notion of change’ as revealed through the texts you have studied this year. In your answer you should refer to your prescribed text, one from the prescribed stimulus booklet Changing, and a related text of your own choosing.”

Everything is constantly changing; indeed, the world is so ephemeral that one
may argue it is impossible to step into the same river twice. Given the inevitability of
change, the inability to cope with and accept it will lead to a failure to deal with life.
Each of the poems in Peter Skrzynecki’s ‘Immigrant Chronicle’ revolves around the
key aspect of change. This collection of poems deals with the personal experiences of
migrants, how their perspectives are altered, and how this modification of perception
is brought about. The process and significance of change is a central issue in every
poem. There can be a catalyst for change, as in ‘Kornelia Woloszczuk’ when Kornelia
loses her only child, or it can be a gradual process, as exemplified through the
increasing depression of patients in ‘Chronic Ward’. In each of these instances, the
reader is given a point of view on change, and is shown how perspective can affect
the process of change. One’s per...