The Arrival by: Shaun Tan (3 Points)

The Arrival by Shaun Tan is an immigration story. The story is able to distinctly depict how it truly feels moving to a new place by creating a new world filled with unique traditions, foods, and all about general world building. Everything from transportation to how to get food has been meticulously picked over and made truly alien. The way the world is built, it feels almost like all of humanity discovered a new planet or continent, and because this place was so isolated, it had no influence from the rest of the world, therefore this world was built in a vacuum and became unrecognizable to us nor the characters who move here. Doing this meant that no one that would read this would ever relate to the this place, and makes us just as confused as the main character, making the story very immersive. This story offers a truly unique point of view for those who have never experienced anything like this before. My mother moved to the United States from Puerto Rico when I was still fairly young, and although the transition wasn't as extreme for me as what is depicted in the Arrival, I found some comfort and understanding while reading the story. One thing I found interesting was with the stories of not only the main character, but the side characters, and how they decided to leave their homes. The terrible things that happened to their homes were just as unrecognizable to the readers as the setting of the new world was, so the reader never knows the exact thing that cast these people away from their homes. Was it a natural disaster, politics, or an alien abduction? That doesn't exactly matter in the story, what matters is their decision to move and how they transitioned to call the new place home.


(306 words)

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