Symbolism In Shaun Tan's Tales From Outer Suburbia

Shaun Tan’s Tales from Outer Suburbia was published to the market in the year 2008. The book contains stories and poems that deal with the lives of immigrants, love, and human experiences. The author uses different symbols and allegories to represent the different aspects of life. The short story, “Eric”, is a profound allegory, and the author uses playful and lively images to help the reader understand the story. The images are used to symbolize the text and assists the story to come to life. The alienated feeling of being the “other” is another important symbol which plays a major role in the text as it unfolds the story and tells us about the immigrant experience. The short story “Eric” consists of numerous images that explain the text and act as symbols. Eric

Eric being portrayed as a figure that stands out compared to other characters tells us that even though the family accepted him, society will always have a hard time understanding people who are not identical and come from a different cultural background than them. Natives of a region might tend to alienate a group of people who they are unfamiliar with. Eric went about his daily life in a different way than his host family, such as studying and sleeping in the kitchen, and how he left without saying anything.The family’s justifications of these peculiar actions was “it must be a cultural thing”. This symbolizes the distinct lifestyles around the globe. Eric discovers and inspects every new object that he stumbles upon and asks the narrator loads of questions, but most of the question were about things that natives overlook and ignore in their everyday lives. The only answer the narrator would have was “that’s just how things are”. This shows us that once humans get used to a place, they tend to overlook the small details and find it strange when people unfamiliar to the environment notice them. Eric interacts with every new thing