The Arrival By Shaun Tan

The Arrival
The arrival by Shaun Tan is inspirational. In the book, there is a sequence in images that leave readers with suspense on what these pictures may indicate. You could never go to the second chapter without reading the first chapter before because these pictures tell a story that unfolds slowly but unknown; with reasons behind them that the author and the pictures let alone know. There is a language of silence told in graphics that makes you wonder, what does the picture mean and is it important?
In front of the book before chapter one, there are drawn portraits of different types of people that look like they could of came from Mexico, India, Peru, England, Africa, Asia etc. and neither one of them is smiling, but that doesn’t mean
This time though, Tomsy looks like he’s trying to ask people for a job but they all reject. Tomsy gets tired and takes a little break until he spots a man posting posters on walls so he asks him and the man agrees so Tomsy is doing the man’s job while the man had somewhere to be then when Tomsy is finished he spots a lady handing out packages with weird writings. Tomsy offers to deliver the mail in exchange for a job and the lady says yes then hands him a basket. Tomsy gets a new job in a factory throwing away deformed products that don’t look right, there are a lot of workers there. While working a man hands Tomsy a cup cause he notices that Tomsy must be weary. The man starts to tell Tomsy a story of when he’d been to war. He was leaving and women were throwing flowers, the man was a soldier at that time and he was lined up with other fellow soldiers marching. They left their beautiful home town and on the next page you can see the man’s legs. The old man has travelled to a lot of places during the war; the old man has travelled through concrete, to sand, to pebbles, to rocks, on top of steeps, through water, in mud, through bodies, through rubble, and then he ran and ran and ran. The war was ugly as you can see on the next page; there are skeletons of decayed bodies in a load of ash and rubble. The old man has lost his right leg through his fight, in the pictures falls but gathers himself back up so he can go to where he belongs after the war, home. He arrives to his home town but only to see it was destroyed, he came alone with no other soldiers. They have lost the war. Now back to Tomsy, he was so busy listening to the story that he doesn’t realize that his shift is over, the old man and Tomsy walk through town and Tomsy sees these beautiful flying creatures diving into bodacious leaves and beautiful skies. The old man introduces Tomsy to some of his friends and they start playing a weird