The story revolves around a man who tearfully leaves his behind his wife and young daughter in order to look for a better life in a faraway land. Once he gets there, he is thrust into this strange, foreign world with a different alphabet, odd creatures, and fantastic, whimsical architecture and technology. Of course, our hero is quite lost and confused at first, but throughout his stay he meets other people who describe their immigration stories to him, and he also befriends a strange white tadpole-like critter who helps him out along the way. In the end, his wife and daughter come to live with him, and the story ends with his daughter helping out another immigrant get their start in the strange land, just like her own father got help from those around him.
Of course, the most striking aspect of this book is that it contains absolutely no words. The story is told entirely through pictures. I believe that this is Tan’s way of showing that the story of immigration is everyone’s story (especially immigration to New York, since the strange land in his story seems to symbolize Ellis Island) . It was experienced by at least one person in our families, and shapes our culture and personalities. The main character is an Everyman figure, representing all immigrants. It doesn’t matter what language we speak; we are all bound by this common thread of a history of immigration and starting a new life in a new land. The pictures also help the reader to immerse themselves more in the book and relate to the main character on a deeper level. Since we have to decipher the meaning of the pictures, we are more attuned to the moods and feelings of the main character as we follow him on his adventure. Didn’t you feel lost and frightened with him when he encountered the spiky fruits and couldn’t read the picture language of that land?
The story also seems to have no sense of a time period. The style and dress of the characters hearken back to the late nineteenth/early twentieth century, and the artwork in the book is either black and white or sepia-toned. However, the technology and machinery that are central to life in the strange land are so advanced they seem straight from a fantasy. This shows how the central idea of immigration will always remain the same, regardless of the passage of time.
“The Arrival” is a unique read that presents an old story in an entirely different, more meaningful way.
