Shaun Tan’s The Arrival documents the story of a man who immigrates to a new land by using visually striking illustrations. The protagonist encounters new and strange things in this new land as many immigrants did when they moved to a new place. It is unclear where the place the protagonist immigrates to due to the strange writings, animals, plants, food, and architecture.
The architecture of this new land is huge and expansive. Compared to the small worn down houses of the protagonist’s home land, the buildings of the new land seem updated and larger than life. The tall and beautifully designed buildings of this advanced new world are accompanied by statues that depict people or animals in a rounded fashion. When the group of immigrants are first coming in on the boat, they first see the statue of two people shaking hands. Most of them have never seen a statue so grand and so welcoming. When I first saw this, it immediately reminded me of the Statue of Liberty that many of the immigrants who came to New York City first saw when they arrived to America. Just like how the Statue of Liberty is meant to welcome the immigrants to New York, I think this statue is meant to accept the immigrants into the new land.
Tan plays with the idea of the grandness of the architecture of this city versus the smallness of an immigrant who has just come to this city. In many instances, the people look like ants compared to the colossal towers. One instance is towards the beginning of the protagonist’s life in the new land where the thousands of people waiting to be documented in the immigration center is juxtaposed by the towering buildings with writing that no one understands on it. This allows the reader to understand how small the new immigrants must feel in a new culture. The protagonist struggles to talk to the people or read the new language so he resorts to a primitive way of communication like drawing and hand gestures. He is confused by everything that’s going on around him and struggles to find his true self in such a bustling city.
The surreal architecture in the protagonist’s new environment makes himself and the readers feel separate from the new society. Both are not used to this kind of city and as a result, makes them take more time to think about the hardships that an immigrant goes through when trying to better his life and his family’s life.
