The Arrival

Shaun Tan's the arrival is a perfect example of storytelling in its most universal form; it communicates everything entirely through visual symbols and gestures that anyone from any culture can relate to. It tells the story of an immigrant leaving his family to travel to a new and strange world full of promise. Upon first glance it may seem that this is a simple metaphor for the immigration that occurred into the United States in the early 20th century, however the experience is universal to anyone moving to a foreign place. Each person the main character meets shares his or her own experience of how they got to where they were, with every story being drawn directly from real experiences gathered from real people.

The decision to forgo the use of words in telling this web of stories was not arbitrary or gimmicky, as it directly related to subject matter and concept. In order to feel the direct connection with the main character's sense of confusion and feeling of being out of place, you had to be just as bewildered by everything as he was. The representation of all the signage and lettering on papers and buildings as an incomprehensible series of characters made the ability to empathize with the feeling of being somewhere totally new and frightening palpable. I believe this is why wordless comics serve a purpose for existing. It is a quality shared by early silent movies, but has been almost entirely lost due to our media-saturated current culture. Is has the ability to translate complex emotions and concepts in a way that direct communication through language cannot. It allows for a more direct experience, and in my opinion a more personal experience of a story.

I can only hope more stories like this continue to be made as our culture continues to prefer loud, direct action to subtle, quiet experiences.