In my essay i will be exploring the book (The arrival). The arrival is a book without words that sends its message through pictures. The theme of the book is immigration and adapting to certain circumstances in life. Shaun Tan has written about immigration several times. As an Australian himself he knows how many refugees are treated, as Australians thought of refugees as a waste of space. For this reason the author decides to write about a father leaving his daughter and wife to look for a better life as their economic value could be very bad or could need more money. Shaun Tan allows the reader to sympathise with the traumatic experiences that most refugees go through.
In the very first picture I can see images of several people. I think that these pictures have the fact that everyone is a different race in common. They do not seem to be happy in their pictures, this may be because they are migrants. I presume that they are migrants because their clothes look old and very worned out, the reason for this is probably because they are migrants and they are looking for a better place to live so they won’t have much money to spend on appearance and glamour. He added several pictures because he wants to give the reader a better chance of knowing what is happening as he is not using any words. He gives the reader more many images of people that do not seem that rich and that are completely different races to each other.
In the second image there are object, which would all be normally found in a household. I think Shaun Tann does this because when you are moving you would usually take object of a very significant importance to the person who is leaving. The second image includes two images of the main characters family, this shows us that family is very important to him. The second image also includes a clock. This could be because he wants to be reminded of his old home, so taking an object that he constantly saw at his old home would give him a sense of security and comfort.
The third image shows two statues greeting each other. This could be seen as the citizens greeting the migrants from all around the world. The author of this book may of done this because it shows that some people appreciate what migrants could potentially bring to their country. I think this represents migrants because there is a person with a suit case implying that he has arrived from a journey.
Shaun Tann shows that he has been tagged like an animal when they are being moved to another place. The person in the image looks confused and sad, this may be because he does not understand what they are saying because they might be speaking a different language to his own, He might be feeling sad because he is probably getting stressed out that no one can understand him.
In conclusion, I think Shaun Tann expressed migration in many ways throughout this book. I did not enjoy the book because I did not manage to completely understand it and I was still left with several questions.
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