I think that The Arrival by Shaun Tan is an
excellent example of the wordless narrative. First of all, the subject
matter was really clear and relatable making its application to this genre
still a difficult task but more manageable. Think about it. Immigration is such
a topic not built mainly on words but on the feeling and emotion of being
engulfed in an unfamiliar world and culture. I feel like it adds another level
of interest that he also experienced this process of moving from familiar
surroundings to that of the unknown.
Shaun Tan's sensitivity to gesture, human psychology and his
understanding of how we communicate ideas and concepts to one another across
multiple mediums were really subtle emotional elements that aided the story. As
I read through the book, I noticed that there are numerous scenes where the
main character has to interact with people who were totally foreign to him and
the only hint of the subject matter of the dialogue that the main character
gives the viewer is maybe a diagram or two drawn by him. Most of the other
information we only get through expressions on the face or the way or in what
direction a hand is gesturing. There are other hints given to thus, but those
have to do design choices, which we will discuss next. This powerful
understanding of human interaction could have only been achieved this
successfully through personal experience.
Other elements that really influenced and strengthened the visual
readability of this story are the design choices that were made from style to
eye movement created by the compositional staging of each frame. For example, the
decision to exaggerate the grandeur of this strange land by really pushing the
fantastical quality of architecture but still keeping the basic characteristics
and concepts of the classes of people and where they fit into that society was
very strong. Also, the way that Tan moved our eye through each frame was
incredible and how he only seemed to give the viewer just enough information to
propel the story enough to the next panel was a genius move. And I don't want
to fail to mention one mechanism that Tan used so well—compression and
extension of time. This was especially evident when the father was looking for
a job. The action of him traveling from one employer to another was compressed
into a series of like three panels. The extension of time occurred when he was
working the assembly line to show how tedious and monotonous that job was.
These elements helped tell the story for me in a more convincing way not
necessarily how it happened but in the time frame that we feel these actions
occur.
Overall, I feel like the culmination of all of these elements in
addition to the fact that it was based, in part; on his own immigration
experience enhanced this story's clarity, readability, and success as a
wordless graphic narrative.
