Preview

Allegory And Techniques In Shaun Tan's Stick Figures

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
383 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Allegory And Techniques In Shaun Tan's Stick Figures
“It's as if they take all our questions and offer them straight back: Who are you? Why are you here? What do you want?” -- Shaun Tan

Shaun Tan’s Tales from Outer Suburbia published in 2008 is a piece that shows the true meaning of life experiences through a seamless flow of writing and illustration. The short stories convey real life situations such as family, love and everyday struggles by welcoming the readers to enjoy the beautiful tone of the art and words put into every piece and to truly find the underlying message of each story. In the short story “Stick Figures”, Tan digs into the reality of struggles within not belonging and other sorts of harassment through the use of metaphorical words. Tan’s use of words and sentences is an allegory

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Simple Gift

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The concept of belonging to a place has been shown through Billy’s perspective in the poem ‘Longlands Road’, it has shaped his identity as well as given him a reason to hate the place he grew up in drawing a lack of connection to his father. Billy tells the readers how much he hates the town he lives in and feels that he doesn’t belong “deadbeat no-hoper shithole lonely downtrodden house in Longlands Road, Nowheresville.” By the use adjectives, negative tone and expletives it shows Billy’s resentment he has towards his home town as well as suggesting negative experiences he’s encountered. Billy feels he doesn’t belong and even though there’s a sense of history, it has been a negative experience and has urged him to leave. At the start of the poem Billy describes that the house “this place has never looked so rundown and beat” showing the physical degradation of the house not being looked after symbolising the way Billy wasn’t looked after. Furthermore, suggesting that he doesn’t belong or have a positive connection to Longlands Road. By Billy’s actions of throwing rocks onto the roofs of the houses in Longlands Road additionally adds his negative attitude he has towards his street and the rest of the place situated in it. The increase of negative diction in the quote “I throw one rock on the roof” highlights his…

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Rabbits

    • 1000 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Images are a universal language that appeals to a wider audience through techniques that give the pictures meaning. Consequently, an individual is able to perceive the image in their own way depending on their level of knowledge. As a result, the audience is able to interpret both simple and complex ideas within the pictures according to their own understanding. John Marsden and Shaun Tan’s picture book The Rabbits demonstrates the different ways an individual may interpret narratives through techniques such as allegory, anthropomorphism and symbolism. Through these techniques, simple and complex ideas are communicated, and depending on a person’s knowledge, this reflects different ideas that the person may gather from the pictures in the book. Through the analysis of both visual and literacy techniques, a picture book’s ability to address both simple and complex ideas will be discussed.…

    • 1000 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Allegory is yet another technique used to depict the concept of power and powerlessness within the poem. The giraffe is an allegory for women in society. The poet illustrates the giraffe as constantly confined in captivity; this is similar to that of housewives’ confinement to their homes. As they do not have any freedom nor any independence, both the housewives and the giraffe are seen as powerless. As a result, readers gain a broader perspective into the social powerlessness of women as drawn through the giraffe.…

    • 604 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The two poems by Peters Skrzynecki, “Feliks Skrzynecki” and “10 Mary Street” paint a picture of a migrant family where the father and son have different perceptions of their belonging as a result of their different cultural experiences. In addition, their feelings about belonging change over time. This changing sense of belonging is conveyed effectively through a variety of poetic devices such as: imagery, metaphors, similes and hyperboles.…

    • 1152 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In our story we see two major symbolizations that have been used, the white elephants that Jig called the hills and the rail road station. The author has used these three elements to develop a theme to this story in which the girl has identified her problems in a scenario mixed with a complex argument that is going on in between them. The white elephants develop into a different meaning and change the tone…

    • 882 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    | Steven Herrick’s free verse novel explores this value of events that shape a persons identity and hence their sense of belonging in their world. The cause of his alienation appears to be physical and psychological abuse from his father, lack of caring from his school and his run down neglected neighbourhood with its “deadbeat no hoper… downtrodden house in Longlands Rd, Nowheresville”.…

    • 922 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Skrzynecki’s poems ‘10 Mary Street’ and ‘Migrant Hostel’ particularly demonstrate the positive and negative effects place can have on one’s ability to belong. ’10 Mary Street’ deals with a younger Skrzynecki’s experiences living within his working class family home in a positive environment whilst ‘Migrant Hostel’ deals with the very early memories of living in the migrant camps within Australia and, though it isn’t a positive atmosphere, is viewed by Skrzynecki as the first real place that he can consider ‘home’ and can therefore belong to. The Pursuit of Happiness deals with the issue of the need to belong to a place through the unfolding story of Chris Gardner and his son as they face barriers such as homelessness.…

    • 1249 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Both Peter Skrzynecki’s ‘Immigrant Chronicle’ and Gabriele Muccino’s The Pursuit of Happiness represent the need for belonging through a character’s place and interpret the general need for place in belonging. Within ‘Immigrant Chronicle’, Skrzynecki’s poems ’10 Mary Street’ and ‘Migrant Hostel’ particularly demonstrate the positive and negative effects place can have on one’s ability to belong. ’10 Mary Street’ deals with a younger Skrzynecki’s experiences living within his working class family home in a positive environment whilst ‘Migrant Hostel’ deals with the very early memories of living in the migrant camps within Australia and, though it isn’t a positive atmosphere, is viewed by Skrzynecki as the first real place that he can consider ‘home’ and can therefore belong to. The Pursuit of Happiness also deals with the issue of the need to belong to a place through the unfolding story of Chris Gardner and his son as they face barriers such as homelessness.…

    • 1598 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I believe that Art Spiegelman chose to depict his characters as mice, cats, pigs and the like because it was symbolic of the position of power at the time of the Holocaust. For example, the Jews are represented as mice. I believe that this is symbolic of the fact that the Jews, like mice, were being hunted and eradicated. Additionally, they were forced to live like mice by hiding and scavenging for food. The Nazis are depicted as cats, I believe, to represent that they were the “hunters”, chasing and killing the Jews. Americans are portrayed as dogs because, in this instance, they drove away the Germans or, the cats. Other characters were represented as animals in this story, as well. For example, the Polish were drawn as pigs and the…

    • 259 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    We are often positioned how we should feel about a location from its representations in texts. In Archie Weller’s short story, ‘Stolen Car’, he conveys ideas about Perth through a variety of techniques. The ideas which are conveyed in Weller’s story include, but are not limited to, urban corruption, intense racism and the general lawlessness of ‘progress’. The techniques which he has incorporated consist of colour, animalistic connotations and anthropomorphic likening’s.…

    • 518 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Human beings, like plants, grow in the soil of acceptance, and not in the atmosphere of rejection. The inability to accept the realities of a new world and its surroundings is a consistent challenge where individuals must struggle not only with their personal obstacles, but also with the adversity of discovering a sense of affiliation in an antagonistic culture neighboring them. Peter Skrzynecki’s widely acknowledged poems ‘Immigrant Chronicles’ and Peter Weir’s universally acclaimed film ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ both exhibit the way one’s disconnectedness to person or place affects an individuals resistance to belonging. These two texts also accentuate the fundamental need for individuals to conform to social expectations and identify themselves as a part of an accepted normality.…

    • 585 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the reader is presented with the many different emotions and perspectives of the narrator as she sees images of a woman in the wallpaper. The author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, successfully makes this event interesting and significant. Some may see the lady behind the wallpaper as something the narrator sees because she is “crazy” or imagines for no other reason than boredom. However, only one thing must be true as various parts in the story allude and point to. The narrator is the woman trapped in the wallpaper, and the narrator reflects on her feelings of imprisonment within reality and her own mind.…

    • 1169 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Visuals are distinctive, not because it only appeals to a specific audience but because they convey a universal concept and this is clearly shown in Henry Lawson’s “Drover’s Wife” and “In a dry season”, along with related text, “Lamb” by Emma Freeman. The two short stories and short film convey the universal principle of persistence, hardship, and mateship and a subtle but prevalent emphasis on deceit through appearance to ensure survival in an unforgiving and harsh environment.…

    • 769 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Horizontal World Analysis

    • 820 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In “Horizontal World” author Debra Marquart applies vivid imagery, unique diction, and a personal anecdote to convey the importance and uniqueness of small towns. All in all, the rhetorical devices help make the text powerful by conveying a personal message to the reader that includes strong imaging, precise…

    • 820 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the fall of a city by Alden Nowlan, symbolism is used to help the reader grasp how important this imaginative world is to the boy. The symbolism of the cardboard town aids the reader in understand the story and the boy more. In the story the author writes; “Gritting his teeth and grunting, he tore at it’s walls...he was crying by the time he finished tearing it to shreds.” (Nowlan 45) this quotation exemplifies how the boy no longer feels happy with his alternate reality, due to his uncle’s mocking and shows the reader just how much his story had meant to him. Throughout the story, the boy would use this world he created in his mind as an escape from his reality, often the story he is telling resembling things from his life, like how the…

    • 177 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays