Wordless Comics

At first I thought I was just looking at a series of random images, but as it zoomed out on the picture of the family, The Arrival by Shaun Tan started making sense to me. The story slowly progressed through series of images closely related, such as one showing the family of the main character, then the next picture is zoomed out more revealing that it is actually a framed picture of the family, and then after that it shows the main character wrapping the picture in a cloth. It continues to follow this pattern throughout the story. The characters expressions and gestures also influence the mood of each scene. Flashbacks are represented in a different way. When the story goes into a flashback, I noticed that the pictures get darker and grayer, possibly representing how the past events were dark and depressing times.  The darkness connecting with the past events is shown in the one picture where the giants with vacuum machines are sucking up the townsfolk and their faces are covered in shadows. The sky around the town is dark, and the city is blanketed in darkness in the wake of the giants. The darker images also seem to represent negative moments, such as when the main character is on the boat, alone, without his family. When he gets off the boat, the images start to get lighter again.

Some events are repeated in the story, such as him arriving to the city in a flying box, and then later his family arrives in a similar box. At one point it shows the main character gesturing someone to look at a map so he can get directions, then at the end of the story, a woman is gesturing to a map, and the main characters daughter gives her directions, so I though that was an interesting way to tie up the story. I also noticed that each chapter separated the days that each event occurred. One thing that I am unsure of was the period of time between each chapter. I am not sure if each chapter happens months apart, or if the main characters family meets back up with him only a week after the first chapter.