Zooming In: Diving Into the Mind of the Protagonist 

A reflection on The Arrival by Shawn Tan

Shawn Tan's The Arrival is a relatable story about immigration and immersion into new personally uncharted territory. The lack of words in the narrative prevent the author from describing what his protagonist is feeling in high detail, as is favored by authors, to go into paragraph after paragraph of rich detailed description in order to pull the reader into the mind of the protagonist. Tan alternatively uses panel size and layout to effectively draw the reader (or spectator as we are looking at images) into the mind of this traveler. Full bleed images are used to place us in a setting and general feeling of the place in the story and then smaller panels are used to slow down time and draw our minds into the protagonists. Seeing every movement drawn on the page, gives particular details a place to be displayed and noticed serving as the detailed descriptions we would normally read on an in-depth
paragraph.


When we see these panels of the protagonists hands carefully packing up a framed image of his family we can feel his sadness and might even delve into a nostalgia of our own; everyone at some point has packed to move away and there are always some items we pack hold much significance to us. These panels pull us into the mind of the protagonist and they are drawn to make us see through his very eyes, see what he is seeing and feel what he is feeling.

This strategy is used throughout the story as shown by the following panels:

These zoom into the moment, slow down the story and allow the viewer to focus on the details of the story, the details of how the protagonist is feeling and this helps drive the story forward.  A specially detailed image is the largest panel of the third page in the above series where the protagonist opens up his luggage and "sees" his family back home dining without him. This image is simple yet it tells us so much about how the protagonist is feeling and helps put us in his shoes and dive deeper into the story.

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