Visual Comprehension

A book without words? As part of our diary topic, we have been exploring the exquisite graphic novel, 'The Arrival' by Shaun Tan.  Tan uses carefully constructed images to tell a story through illustrations alone, which leaves the story open to interpretations.

We have been looking at significant images throughout the book in the context of its surrounding images to infer what we think may be happening in each image by referring to the image in our answers. Additionally, we explored the author's (or illustrator's) use of defamiliarisation throughout the novel - which makes the reader empathise with the alien surrounding that the protagonist finds himself in.