How Does Shaun Tan Use Irony In The Amnesia Machine

In the “The Amnesia Machine”, the author, Shaun Tan took advantages of using irony in the ice cream van and the positioning of the text within the newspaper to be able to spread his message to his audiences about how all of us has been living pretty blindly in the society these days. Tan has used the technique of create ironic images in his ice cream van inside the picture. The van was clearly represented as the government these days. It was similar to some sort of a brainwashed machine where it completely emptied everyone’s minds and in this case, we can relate to us as we might have been brain-washed by our government. For instance in the text, Tan talked about how there is one person who was extremely curious the machine so he went out to the park and decided to find out what it is. But the next second he opens his eyes, he was standing in his own kitchen, holding an ice cream cone with his mind completely emptied and he cannot recall anything. So as we can see, the machine might just be completely the same as our government these days, mysterious

After looking at the articles/stories around Tan’s piece, there was no coincidence, it was placed there with a purpose. For example, as we look at the two stories title under it. One is “Truth overrated, explains Minister” and te other is “Meltdown not so bad after all”. So are these two articles had anything similar or in common? I don’t know about you but Tan obviously thought about this extremely throughout. Both are talking about political issues and how the government side is reassuring its people that everything is OK. But are they actually OK like they said? Therefore, the fact that Tan positioned his story has left a huge influence on his audiences as he tried to alert others about how the government in this society are full of filthy