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The Arrival Shaun Tan Analysis

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“The Arrival,” by Shaun Tan, is a wordless novel that depicts the experience immigrants have when vacating their homes in different countries to start new in the United States. Readers can see that on the first page there is a collage of headshots from multiple people of different ethnicity and religion. The first image page of the wordless novel helps viewers get a clearer image of what the novel is about. In “The Arrival,” Shaun Tan depicts the hardships and enjoyment that immigrants experience when moving to a new country, since the piece was written in 2006, there seems to be more hardships than enjoyment when coming to the United States. Chapter one shows a business man leaving for a new start in a different country with his family. …show more content…

Imagery is the illustration of the skeletons depicts how the United States military is now, people of different ethnicities banding together to fight and defend the country that they love. In chapter three there is a scene with three gargantuan men wearing hazmat suits and carrying handheld vacuum cleaners. They appear to be vacuuming people, and the look of fear on the civilian’s faces makes it apparent that their life is in danger. Tan uses symbolism in this illustration by displaying situations people are trying to flee from their home country. These men that are in the illustration can represent political corruption or chemical bombs that went off. Political corruption comes to mind when you see the vacuum cleaners they are using, when you think of politics, you think of people trying to convince you to follow their campaign. However, in some other countries communism forces you to follow their commands or else, which is why these men are vacuuming up civilians. War comes to mind when you see the hazmat suits, war always plays a role in immigration and reasons why people move. During the time of World War II people were fleeing countries overseas like Japan, because of chemical bombs and nuclear bomb

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Immigration is a very current issue that is extremely complex and multifaceted, due to the variety of different people it affects and the impact it can have on societies as a whole. The decision to immigrate is not an easy one and is influenced by many factors that can be defined as push or pull factors. A push factor is a condition, typically negative, that compels people to leave their homes for somewhere new and can be accompanied by other push factors and pull factors, which are conditions that entice people to a new place, typically a positive attribute of another location. Enrique’s Journey written by Sonia Nazario highlights these different motives by following a young boy named Enrique from Honduras, who decides to take the very risky

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Immigrants, fleeing their homeland to escape oppression for religion or to find better opportunities for employment, were drawn to the booming American land of industrialization and urbanization. Old immigrants from Western Europe entered the country prominently in the 1880’s. But from the 1890’s to the outbreak of World War I, New Immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe flooded the country. These immigrants, bringing with them lesser-practiced customs and religions that could shape the culture of America, mainly congregated with people of similar nationalities in ethnic neighborhoods in the growing cities, thus limiting their assimilation into American society. Another factor limiting the influence of immigration on America was the resistance of the “native” Americans to the New Immigrants.

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For a nine-year-old who wants nothing more than to make her mother proud this was exciting. In the beginning, we can see her excitement and desire, “in the beginning I was just as excited as my mother, maybe even more so.” (Tan). However, as we follow the story we see her excitement quickly fade to sorrow and anger. The high expectations immigrant families place on their children is still a very relevant social issue and can be witnessed throughout the United States.

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