The Arrival was an exciting and delightful experience to partake in. A wordless comic, it had a clarity and attention to detail that allowed you to easily enter the world Shaun Tan painted. The Arrival was also exciting as it was a story about exploring a new world. We, like the man who came to a new country and life, are unfamiliar with the world he now inhabits and it makes it easy to follow his attempts to get on his feet in this new land. The whimsy of the language, design, architecture, and creatures of the world in The Arrival is a wonderful commentary on the perceptions of foreigners in a completely alien environment.
The wordless elements allow the comic to become universal, which in itself is exciting, as it rings true with the entire idea behind the story. The different stories of the other immigrants were just as intriguing as the story of the main character. It was further intriguing on the nature of those stories was the mysterious nature of the life elsewhere. These small glimpses into these other worlds was as insightful and heartfelt as the departure and reunion of the character with his family.
The man telling of his escape from the giant vacuum men (least, that's what I got out of it) made me wonder, as he spoke of his wife and himself, and we only see him and his son, I began to question. Did his wife make it? How much does his son remember? It was a happy moment to see that his wife was alive, and how welcoming these people were to an immigrant. My questions wandered father, to who made this country, and what were its ideals? Were they protected from the travesties that affected other countries or was it simply a matter of time until these people's pasts catch up with them, or if a different disaster would find them?
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