The Arrival is an incredibly stunning work of art. The wordless graphic novel is an astonishingly intriguing and beautiful way of graphically portraying the feeling of being in a new place. I found it really easy to connect with this text, because the story hit home for me. 

All alone. Basically how I felt in an image. 

The protagonist of Tan’s narrative leaves home to create a new life in a new land. I found this aspect of the narrative relatable, as it is pretty much how I am living right now. I’m at Otterbein as an international student. I came by myself and felt very alone during the first two or so weeks. Once I started to make friends, things got easier though. But America felt just like Tan’s artwork. A huge, huge landscape with many strange foods, people and social norms. 

What I also found the most appealing about The Arrival was the lack of text. There are no words to explain anything. We follow the images to understand the story. I find this much more effective than using words, as words indicate that there is one “correct” meaning. Sure, we can read into the text and find our own meaning, but the words indicate what we should feel – there is an implied meaning. This isn’t the way I responded to The Arrival. I spent as long as I needed admiring the images, studying all of the details to get a complete understanding of what Tan is trying to say with his images. I could make up my own mind about what the images were saying. The image above is a fine example – what are those black tails? What is their purpose? What do they represent? It’s all up to interpretation.