The Symbolism Of Birds In Andrew Aydin And Nate Powell's March

Across all cultures, birds have come to symbolise the status of freedom, and have been portrayed as such in media. The United States of America’s official symbol is the bald eagle, said to symbolize both strength and freedom that the country upholds as part of its core values. Crafty visual work is also at play in graphic novels and memoirs, where symbols can supplement the understanding of the overall theme in a particular page or scene. One graphic memoir, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell’s March series, is adept at using the symbol of the bird to communicate the idea of freedom. This retelling of John Lewis’ life and involvement in the civil rights movement portrays this in a way that is unique to its own style, and stands by the overall message

The first view of the penitentiary on page 99 is in a bird’s-eye view, a shot frequently used in scenes throughout the series. By using this shot, a sense of disassociation with a scene is created, in order to portray the view of the bird: unbound and free to fly as it likes. Those at eye level in this point of view are portrayed to be superior to those depicted at a lower level. To reinforce this idea, there are birds present in the background at eye-level, but there is also the guard tower in view. The juxtaposition of the “camera”, the guard tower, and the freedom riders below seems to suggest that those in a position of authority have more freedom than the freedom riders, who are seen down below and are drawn slightly smaller. Page 101 briefly shifts to bird’s-eye view when the officers begin to further enforce restrictions on the freedom riders, playing to the same idea of disassociation with the scene and the lack of freedom present below. This directly refers to the status of civil rights in Mississippi when African-Americans lacked equal rights to their fairer skinned brethren, but also speaks to the authoritarian policing and poor treatment towards

On page 100, the view shifts from a bird’s-eye view to a worm’s-eye view, meant to portray powerlessness and hopelessness. The ducks are presented in this view, during a scene in which the freedom riders are shoved onto the premises of the penitentiary. The last two panels seem to juxtapose each other, with one panel showing the wrists of John Lewis bound by the handcuffs and the other showing the duck unrestrained and looking onto the seemingly hopeless scene. To the comparatively free birds, the scene before them seems to lack any freedom at all due to the treatment of the freedom riders. The next page portrays the freedom riders becoming more and more restrained by the officers because of their attempts to resist and retain their freedoms. The next panels depict the departure of the ducks, and a flock of birds in the sky that are flying away from the penitentiary, just as the warden says “Ain’t no newspaper out here” (Aydin 101). This, alongside the increased restraints on the freedom riders, suggests that freedom is nowhere to be found and has effectively vanished at the