Shaun Tan has shown many examples of wonderful drawings adding small details that come unnoticed but still make the book complete, his drawings are so stunningly detailed it feels like your looking into a photo album of a man looking for a better life. Sepia and Black and white drawing are one of his other techniques to tell the stories of the refugee or migrants. Tan highlighting what it feels like to be a refugee in a foreign country. It is unthinkable Shaun Tan wouldn’t win the Primary Mister Literary Award, as his talented work shines through internationally. The media only displays the difficulty the immigrants or refugees will put on the country and the people that are living on it, and not why they are leaving to seek Refuge (Samuel
Anh Do’s book ‘The Happiest Refugee’ is made up of a prologue and twelve chapters that tell a tale of Anh and his family until 2010 which is when the book was published. Anh has come a long way from the day his mother tried like crazy to stop two year old him crying as the family secretly escapes Vietnam.
Many of the people trying to cross the border were not given same luck. Their efforts to leave the situations they are in only cause them a different kind of pain. The lack of safety for these people was astonishing. As Jessie was, I was impressed by Anazulda’s description of living there and the realistic depiction of how it was to live there. As Natalie put, I also loved the realistic writing that Anazulda brought to this piece. She did not try to ease the tone or make it lighter than the reality of the situations. She brought the realness of what happened there to life in her writing, which I greatly admire. The imagery that Brooke points out from Borderlands from page 2 is such a clear image of being trapped within a place you cannot escape from. While I had not thought of the curtains in such a way, I understand the reasoning behind it. Curtains are supposed to provide privacy, shelter from the outside world. Yet, these steel curtains are prisons, keeping those near them from getting away. As Jessie pointed out, the United States is governed to protect the rights of each American citizen, including each of us. Nevertheless, Anazulda and many others who try to cross the border can be subjected to the rules of those who live near the borders and not the laws of the United States that are in place to protect them. I did not think about the call for unity as Natalie described until I read her essay. While she does not make light of the situations caused in the United States, she does leave this impression of hope that we can fix this. We can make it so these borders are less of walls that divide us, and we can make the journey in our country a less terrible and horrifying
“Black Awakening in Capitalist America”, Robert Allen’s critical analysis of the structure of the U.S.’s capitalist system, and his views of the manner in which it exploits and feeds on the cultures, societies, and economies of less influential peoples to satiate its ever growing series of needs and base desires. From a rhetorical analysis perspective, Allen describes and supports the evidence he sees for the theory of neocolonialism, and what he sees as the black people’s place within an imperial society where the power of white influence reigns supreme. Placing the gains and losses of the black people under his magnifying glass, Allen describes how he sees the ongoing condition of black people as an inevitable occurrence in the spinning cogs of the capitalist machine.
Islas, Arturo. From Migrant Souls. American Mosaic: Multicultural Readings in Context. Eds. Gabriele Rico, Barbara Roche and Sandra Mano. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1995. 483-491.
Ann Oakley’s “Beyond the Yellow Wallpaper” infers the myth that health is a medical product and that the inequalities between men and women are easily removed. It analyzes the differences between health, health care and medical care in the context of 'women and health', and of women as providers as well as users of these. Using the lessons of a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman called 'The Yellow Wallpaper', the article identifies and discusses the three most important unsolved problems of women and health as: production, reproduction and the medicalization of the psychological costs of women's situation in the form of mental illness. “Beyond the Yellow Wallpaper” then calls for recognition of health as a social product and for women to tell the truth about our own experiences, because these determine women's health. Lastly, the paper shows how women's health-giving role in reproduction and in ensuring family welfare holds the causes of women's ill-health within
In a country full of inequities and discriminations, numerous books were written to depict our unjust societies. One of the many books is an autobiography by Richard Wright. In Black Boy, Wright shares these many life-changing experiences he faced, which include the discovery of racism at a young age, the fights he put up against discriminations and hunger, and finally his decision of moving Northward to a purported better society. Through these experiences which eventually led him to success, Wright tells his readers the cause and effect of racism, and hunger. In a way, the novel The Tortilla Curtain by T.C Boyle illustrates similar experiences. In this book, the lives of two wealthy American citizens and two illegal immigrants collided. Delaney and Kyra were whites living in a pleasurable home, with the constant worry that Mexicans would disturb their peaceful, gated community. Candido and America, on the other hand, came to America to seek job opportunities and a home but ended up camping at a canyon, struggling even for cheapest form of life. They were prevented from any kind of opportunities because they were Mexicans. The differences between the skin colors of these two couples created the hugest gap between the two races. Despite the difficulties American and Candido went through, they never reached success like Wright did. However, something which links these two illegal immigrants and this African American together is their determination to strive for food and a better future. For discouraged minorities struggling in a society plagued with racism, their will to escape poverty often becomes their only motivation to survive, but can also acts as the push they need toward success.
Awarded the French Prize for best foreign novel, The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle follows the lives of illegal immigrants after entering the United States and the struggles they face in their everyday lives. The Tortilla Curtain, although a fiction book, discusses politically charged issues such as illegal immigration, racism, and poverty. Racism and the Mexican culture are two main thematic topics in this piece of literature. As the debate over immigration continues to escalate across the nation, T.C. Boyle has many questions directed towards him from his readers. More specifically, what his views on immigration are. And Boyle has questions of his own. The such questions he states in an interview: “Do you have the right
Peter Skrzynecki explores this notion through his poem Migrant hostel. Migrant hostel speaks on life not being permanent insinuating that change will overcome and that the immigrants had to adapt to the new life. When the poet speaks of the instability of change within the life of the immigrants, he uses the birds as a metaphor of life not being stable and definite. In relation to the birds Peter uses zoomorphism to further accentuate the notion of change “we lived like bird of passage” the birds symbolise impermanence in the migrants’ lives, the birds never stay in one place they are always changing locations. The birds correlate with the migrants and empathise with not having a stable residence to call home. This poem shapes our understanding by assuring the reader that there is no permanency in the world but just temporary times in life. Peter Skrzynecki presents the temporary side of life through imagery, using the weather and the seasons to express how it is never one weather or one season. “Always sensing a change in the weather: Unaware of the season” Peter delineates the instability within things we cannot control, the weather and the seasons change but they are never the same, this often catches us
The novel is an exposé of the harsh and vicious reality of the American Dream'. George and Lennie are poor homeless migrant workers doomed to a life of wandering and toil. They will be abused and exploited; they are in fact a model for all the marginalized poor of the world. Injustice has become so much of their world that they rarely mention it. It is part of their psyche. They do not expect to be treated any different no matter where they go.
The Arrival by Shaun Tan is a graphic novel published in 2006 by publishers Hooders Children Books. This graphic novel or picture book is used to illustrate multiple different themes including family, war, and perseverance. Shaun Tan, born in 1974 in Perth, is an award-winning author, filmmaker, and illustrator to his and many other authors works. The illustrator had used visual techniques such as colour and camera angles to bring to light important themes. In this essay, I will talk about three themes, child labour, war and immigration/refugees.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” tells the story of a woman who is trapped in a room covered in yellow wallpaper. The story is one that is perplexing in that the narrator is arguably both the protagonist as well as the antagonist. In the story, the woman, who is the main character, struggles with herself indirectly which results in her descent into madness. The main conflicts transpires between the narrator and her husband John who uses his power as a highly recognize male physician to control his wife by placing limitations on her, forcing her to behave as a sick woman. Hence he forced himself as the superior in their marriage and relationship being the sole decision make. Therefore it can be said what occurred externally resulted in the central conflict of” “The Yellow Wallpaper being internal. The narrator uses the wallpaper as a symbol of authenticy. Hence she internalizes her frustrations rather then openly discussing them.
In Tony Morrisons Tar baby the notion of race is explored through the blackness which presents to the readers that as a nati...
Shaun Tan’s The Arrival is a wordless graphic novel, telling the story of a migrant who leaves his family in search of a better life in a mysterious country. He finds himself in an incomprehensible metropolis, mystified by the alien customs, people, strange animals, and indecipherable language. Equipped only with a few of his personal belongings, he establishes himself in the city by learning the basics, organising living arrangements, and finding employment, with the sympathetic assistance of locals who also bare an undeclared history. This annotated bibliography will explore the works that influenced this story, and those it has influenced.
Additionally ,Lucy Estella’s reminiscent picture book ‘Suris Wall’ epitomizes how one’s imagination liberates them from entrapment, conveying how distinctively visual elements explore the human experience.This is conveyed through Suri a young insecure female living in a war-torn city distinguished by her towering height amongst the other children.When Suri realises she is tall enough to see over the wall she becomes a symbol of hope by providing vivid imagery to Eva on what lies behind the wall.Estella heightens feelings of entrapment through the dull colour palette depicting the lack of freedom as she is trapped in this dull world losing a sense of individuality which is added through her hidden face depicting a loss of identity.Additionally,the
Patrick Kingsley is one of the most dazzling young journalists out there. At the age of 26 he is The Guardian’s sole migration correspondent, a two-time author, his most recent book “The New Odyssey” being a perceptive and touching account of the refugee crisis. I talked to Patrick about his book, his role, and his experiences as a reporter in the midst of one of the biggest humanitarian crises of the decade.