WEEK ONE

WEEK ONE

Shaun Tan's The Arrival and It's Wordless Narrative

After reading Shaun Tan's The Arrival I realized how powerful a narrative can be told without any words. The protagonist in the story, a man whose family was driven from their home by an unknown dark force has fled to a new and confusing place in a land far away. He must learn the ways of his new home and provide a living for himself and his family. The reason why no words works so well for this type of narrative is because the story is told from an immigrant's perspective. Like the protagonist we must decipher the story only using pictures and gestures. Shaun Tan's superb use of complex imagery with amazing detail as well as simple readable gestures and expressions helps the readers immerse themselves within the story and experience it as the protagonist would. I actually feel that words might have distracted from the emotion and authenticity of the story, so this was the best decision for the story on Shaun Tan's part. Not only did I enjoy the artful use of silence in this story, I also appreciated how the author was able to portray passage of time and flashbacks without the use of words. His pacing and page layout probably had a role to play in that and was a major tool in a wordless comic like this. The theme of the story was the struggle and ultimate beauty of an immigrant in a strange place. I realized this through the contrast between the different characters and the strange, whimsical surroundings of this 'promise land'. It's a universal story I think anyone can relate to, which makes the lack of words makes all the more sense. This is a story that can travel beyond cultures, countries and languages.