The Arrival by Shaun Tan

A wordless graphic novel is universal. By making up a written language and by relying on only body gestures to understand the story, everyone can experience what it may have been like to be a foreigner migrating to America through Ellis Island. I think it is profound that the Shaun Tan kept the people the same, but changed the architecture, animals, plants/ food, and machinery. I think what Shaun Tan was trying to say is that people are generally same everywhere, the atmosphere, culture, and language just changes. One can really feel the anxiety that the character goes through by making the architecture larger than life, and the culture somewhat futuristic and alien like. Everyone can relate to this graphic novel because everyone in their life has felt alienated, whether it is going on a vacation to an unfamiliar place, being the the new kid at school, or moving away from home to go to college, or the first day at a new job, etc. However, we adapt to survive. Just as the main character does. I like at the end of the story where the main character's daughter is showing the new comer the way around the city. It shows that she has already submersed herself in the culture. It is always the younger generation who adapts the best to new surroundings, and the mature are more set in their ways. I imagine what the story, told through the eyes of the main character's daughter, would be like. I imagine that when she arrives to this strange wacky city things look as they do, but, over time the atmosphere because more recognizable to new yorkers or Americans. Such as the buildings take shape from big pyramid like shapes, to sky scraper rectangles; gibberish becomes English, and the weird lizard like pet, turns into a recognizable dog. It would be interesting in using the elements in this story, but use them to tell a story about racism or immigrants. Perhaps there could be a main character that lives his everyday life and then suddenly these strange people could show up in his city. They maybe wearing goofy outfits or something of that nature; something to set them apart from the norm of the city. The story would be about them trying to get along with the people of the city and the moral would be people are just people we don't need to be afraid of them. I'll maybe think about this for my thesis. Anyway, the drawings are beautiful in this graphic novel and some of the pages are incredibly detailed. I wonder however why he did make the images black and white. Perhaps that was the easiest choice for production. However, there are uses of cool shades and warm shades in the sketches. Maybe this is a universal easy way to show positive or negative energy, rather than color. I could also be a way to show the difference between day and night.