The Arrival by Shaun Tan

Shaun Tan- author and illustrator. The arrival. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-439-895293

Author website: http://www.shauntan.net/

Media: pencil on paper

Genre: graphic novel, steampunk, wordless graphic novel

Annotation

The Arrival, a wordless graphic novel, is the story of a man leaving his home and family to establish a new life in a new unseen land and the process of becoming familiarized with this strange and unfamiliar new land.

My thoughts

The Arrival is an award winning tale that provides an allegorical depiction of the emigrant experience. The protagonist of the story represents the universal emigrant travelling to a strange and unfamiliar land and experiencing new people, things, and places all at the same time. The man is willing to lose everything to move to a land far away to find a new life for his family.

By creating a fictional imaginary world, one that is unfamiliar with all readers of all different backgrounds, Shaun Tan lets the reader experience what it is like to travel to a new country. Even the most basic details are strange. The protagonist has to relearn and assimilate in order to make this his new home. Even the most basic aspects of his life seem confusing at first. He attempts to pour a glass of water from some odd highly complex mechanism and ends up squirting water all over. He goes to the market and discovers that none of the fruit is recognizable. These are all new species. The fruit sellers pantomime that the fruit tastes good. He is in a predicament where he must trust people. Light switches, running water, refrigeration, clothing, the weather, the creatures, pets and wildlife … everything is different.

The protagonist is wordless in this new world. He cannot speak because he doesn’t know the language. Shaun Tan decision to make this a wordless graphic novel heightens this experience of not being able to communicate. The reader is limited to looking and experiencing all of these strange beings, symbols, and invented alphabet with the same level of knowledge as the protagonist. The reader is required to really look at the images to see that there is a lot of communication happening without words. The lack of words really slows the reader down so that they have to focus on the visual details and think about each small object or action.

Gestures and facial expressions effectively carry communication. The emigrants are from all different lands but manage to communicate even through huge cultural and linguistic differences. The lack of words and dependence on the visual is mystifying experience and a very apt way to express this feeling of being in a new land. This really catapults the reader into the immigrant’s shoes.

In addition, because he uses images to tell the story it is interpreted differently depending on where each person is coming from. Some people might focus on the experience of the immigrant, while some people might focus more on the imaginative realm that Tan has created, and others might see it as a bizarre science fiction graphic novel. For me,  

About multiculturalism, this new land is full of people like the main character. The people are new and are also immigrants to this new land. They are all on the same journey and all are trying to find their bearings.

The society is built on ideas of pluralism with multiculturalism in its roots. There are so many different types of people in this society leaving harmoniously together. (They are recognizable by things like different hats). It is something that really can and should be appreciated.

This imaginative and magical realm is quite an experience and the illustrations are amazing and fantastical. The sepia-toned illustrations give the impression of an old photo album that can serve as reminders of the broader context of migration that many share in their family histories. It adds a bit of nostalgia.

At first, I paid more attention to the surreal illustrations and did not think about the book as an experience. Now, after living in Taiwan for a while, it is clear and the book has taken on new meaning for me. Shaun Tan definitely accomplished something very interesting and special with this book.

Curricular connections

Social Studies- Grade 7 and 8. Provides a good impetus for discussions about multiculturalism, pluralism, and diversity in addition to developing interpretation skills. The text offers opportunities to apply multiple critical perspectives to a single text and engaging student discussions.

In addition, The Arrival can be used for high school creative writing and senior English classes.  The graphic novel can help teach students how to identify formal literary devices, perspectives (feminist, cultural, historical, Marxist, etc), analyzing themes, et cetera .

Simulates visual literacy. From Shaun Tan’s Essay “PICTURE BOOKS: Who Are They For?”- “This is perhaps what reading and visual literacy are all about - and what picture books are good for - continuing that playful inquiry we began in childhood, of using imagination to find significance and meaning in those ordinary, day-to-day experiences that might otherwise remain unnoticed. The lessons we learn from studying pictures and stories are best applied to a similar study of life in general - people, places, objects, emotions, ideas and the relationships between them all. At it’s most successful, fiction offers us devices for interpreting reality, and imagining how many such interpretations might be possible.”

Lesson Plan
See 'Lesson Plan' page

Literary devices

Use of Symbolism: Shaun Tan uses symbolism throughout the novel. Nonsensical symbols and an invented alphabet is used to represent a foreign language. Being unable to understand the meaning of these symbols, Tan places the reader in the same frustrating shoes as the emigrant.

Symbolism also includes all of the archetypal imagery of the universal migrants’ experience. Also the shadow of the dragon’s tail wrapping through the migrant’s original city is a symbol/metaphor for oppression of some sort. The impression is that the migrant is leaving a fascist or oppressed city to find a new land for his family.

Birds are also symbols used through the book. The migrant lifts his hat to show his family a paper origami crane on his head and then gives it to his daughter. When in the new magical land, birds are all around.

Use of Metaphor: provides readers an insightful metaphor for the immigrant experience.

Reading level/ Interest Age

Grade 7 and up/ Ages 12 and up

(Some of the imagery might by too ‘scary’ or too abstract for younger ages.)

Reviews and Awards

Booklist Starred Review

School Library Journal Starred Review

2007 Parents’ Choice Gold Award

2007 Booklist Editor’s Choice

2007 School Library Journal Best Book Selection

2007 Amazon.com Best Teen Book

2008 ALA Top Ten Books for Young Adults

2008 ALA Top Ten Graphic Novels for Teens

2008 Boston Globe / Horn Book Award

Hugo Award, Nominated for Best Related Book for The Arrival

Hugo Award, Nominated for Best Professional Artist (also in 2009 and 2010)

Angoulême International Comics Festival Prize for Best Comic Book for Là où vont nos pères, the French edition of The Arrival

World Fantasy Award for Best Artist

New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Community Relations Commission Award for The Arrival

The Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Awards: Picture Book of the Year for 'The Arrival'.2006

Premier's Prize and Children's Books category winner in the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards for 'The Arrival'

Peter Pan Award 2011 for the Swedish translation of The Arrival

Many other positive reviews for The Arrival…

Shaun Tan also won the Swedish Astrid Lindgren prize in 2011 (The World's richest children's literature award), Academy awards Oscar for best animated short film for The Lost Thing.