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How Does Shaun Tan Create Tension In The Book Cicada

579 Words3 Pages

Imagine a small insect in a dark grey human world reaching for help in this new realm but confined to a thick fog. The book Cicada centres around an isolated, depressed, and small cicada. Shaun Tan clears the smoke around xenophobia faced by immigrants in the modern society: elucidating young children. The monotonous life of assimilating immigrants is brought to the light with excellent use of visual literacy, language conventions, and anthropomorphism. Tan expertly uses colours to effectively portray the intensely depressed life of the cicadas. The opening pages of the book are dominated by grey tones, forming a deep sense of monotony and isolation. Page 5 illustrates the cicada being the lone colour in a maze of cubicles. This panel depicts his imprisonment in a colourless routine, stripped of life, bleak and dark. …show more content…

Juxtaposing this, the book turns to the cicadas world filled with greens, reds, and yellows which symbolise happiness, freedom, and peace on page 16. The contrast conspicuously emphasises the different world a cicada comes from, to the one he dwells in, reflecting the xenophobic society immigrants face in new environments. This spotlights the journey Cicada takes throughout the book, from being severely disjointed to when he unburdens himself from the chains of his alien world he lived in for so long, revealed by the rush of colours on page 16. Tan masterfully uses repetition to mirror the monotonous life the cicada I am trapped in. “tok tok tok” is used repeatedly at the end of each page to show the tedious cicada routine. The tok tok tok the sound of the cicada calling for help as the cicada is trapped inside a loophole of endless work, torment, and a void of sorrow. As seen on page 4, he is ignored when in need. He asks for help, but faces an unpleasant wall called xenophobia that separates him from everyone

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