Politics of Postmodern Multiculturalism in Shaun Tan’s The Arrival: Reconfiguring the Subject as a Nomad

Authors

  • Ladislava Khailova Northern Illinois University, United States

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21153/pecl2015vol23no1art1123

Keywords:

postmodernism, multiculturalism, Shaun Tan, The Arrival, nomad, subject

Abstract

In Shaun Tan’s The Arrival (2006), an intriguing 128-page wordless sequence of sepia-toned images marketed to audiences ranging from middle school-age children to adults,1 readers become visually engaged in the main character’s struggle to navigate a nameless constructed geographic space—an imaginary New World. Fleeing his serpent-infested Old World homeland and leaving behind two females usually interpreted as his wife and daughter,2 the migrant protagonist settles in a New World multi-ethnic community that seamlessly meshes elements of the real with the fantastic. Strange creatures jump out of familiar domestic objects, invented alphabets adorn the walls of a typical cityscape, and peculiar foods are served on the dining tables of an everyday household. As Tan suggests on his website in ‘Comments on The Arrival,’ such blending of the ordinary and the imaginary, together with the book’s genre merging, ‘plants the readers...in the shoes of an immigrant character’ (Tan 2009). Something like migrants, readers are positioned to leave behind common understandings in attempts to decipher the new society. I argue that the narrative strategies of defamiliarisation and genre blurring, in juxtaposition with the text’s deployment of further postmodern techniques (such as conflicting or mutually-exclusive symbolic referents), challenge constructions of the subject as a stable, coherent entity with a clear cultural and geographic affiliation, representing the empowerment of the ex-centric. Specifically, I show that The Arrival, as an example of a postmodern text engaged in the ontological enterprise of decentralisation, promotes the nomadic subject as defined by Rosi Braidotti —a fractured, polyvalent form of self not tied to a specific nation, place or ideology (Braidotti 1994). As such, the narrative encourages its readers to celebrate a consciousness that resists discriminatory normative practices, thus opening a space for traditionally disadvantaged subjects, such as immigrants.

 

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Author Biography

  • Ladislava Khailova, Northern Illinois University, United States

    Dr. Ladislava Khailova is Associate Professor at Founders Memorial Library, Northern Illinois University, serving as a Humanities and Social Sciences Subject Specialist and Coordinator of Services for Students with Disabilities. Born in the Czech Republic, Khailova came to the United States as a Fulbright grantee to study 20th Century American literature with an emphasis on Southern literature, and, subsequently, information science. She earned a Ph.D. and an M.L.I.S. from the University of South Carolina and an M.A. in Russian and American Studies from Charles University in Prague. Her research interests gravitate towards the historical and cultural factors that shape constructions of the social other, be it in terms of disability, national origin, race, ethnicity, or gender. Khailova has published articles on American literature as well as on library science. She can be reached at khailova@niu.edu 

References

Abbott, Alana. (2007) ‘Tan, Shaun. The Arrival’, School Library Journal 53, 9, 225.

Allan, Cherie. (2012) Playing with Picturebooks: Postmodernism and the Postmodernesque. New York, Palgrave Macmillan.

Anonymous (2007) ‘The Arrival’, Publishers Weekly 254, 28, 166.

Bhabha, Homi K. (1994) ‘Introduction: locations of culture’, in The Location of Culture. London, Routledge, pp. 1-18.

Braidotti, Rosi. (1994) Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory. New York, Columbia UP.

Coats, Karen. (2008) ‘Postmodern picturebooks and the transmodern self’, in L. R. Sipe & S. Pantaleo (eds.) Postmodern Picturebooks: Play, Parody, and Self-Referentiality. New York, Routledge, pp. 75-88.

Coles, Martin & Hall, Christine. (2001) ‘Breaking the line: new literacies, postmodernism and the teaching of printed texts’, Reading 35, 3, 111-114.

Farrell, Maureen, Arizpe, Evelyn & McAdam, Julie. (2010) ‘Journeys across visual borders: annotated spreads of The Arrival by Shaun Tan as a method for understanding pupils’ creation of meaning through visual images’, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy 33, 3, 198-210.

Goldstone, Bette P. (2001/2002) ‘Whaz up with our books?: changing picture book codes and teaching implications’, The Reading Teacher 55, 4, 362-370.

Hutcheon, Linda. (1988) A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. New York, Routledge.

Karp, Jesse. (2007) ‘The Arrival’. Booklist 104, 1, 115.

Kiefer, Barbara. (2008) ‘What is a picturebook, anyway? The evolution of form and substance through the postmodern era and beyond’, in Lawrence R. Sipe & Sylvia Pantaleo (eds.) Postmodern Picturebooks: Play, Parody, and Self-Referentiality. New York, Routledge, pp. 9-21.

Lempke, Susan D. (2007/2008) ‘The Arrival by Shaun Tan’, Reading Today 25, 3, 34. Margolis, Rick. (2007) ‘Stranger in a strange land’, School Library Journal 53, 9, 34.

Pantaleo, Sylvia & Sipe, Lawrence R. (2008) ‘Introduction: postmodernism and picturebooks’, in L. R. Sipe & S. Pantaleo (eds.) Postmodern Picturebooks: Play, Parody, and Self-Referentiality. New York, Routledge, pp. 1-8.

Stephens, John. (2008) ‘“They are always surprised at what people throw away’: Glocal postmodernism in Australian picturebooks”’, in L. R. Sipe & S. Pantaleo (eds.) Postmodern Picturebooks: Play, Parody, and Self-Referentiality. New York, Routledge, pp. 89-102.

Tan, Shaun. (2001) ‘Shaun Tan: out of context’, Locus 47, 6, pp. 4-5, 74-75.

Tan, Shaun. (2006) The Arrival. New York, Arthur A. Levine.

Tan, Shaun. ‘Comments on The Arrival.’ Available from: http://www.shauntan.net/books/the-arrival.html#anchor [Accessed 30 March 2009].

Tan, Shaun. (2011) ‘The accidental graphic novelist’, Bookbird 49, 4, 1-9.

Yang, Gene Luen. (2007) ‘Stranger in a strange land’, New York Times Book Review, 11 Nov, 21.

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Published

2015-01-01

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Articles

How to Cite

“Politics of Postmodern Multiculturalism in Shaun Tan’s The Arrival: Reconfiguring the Subject as a Nomad” (2015) Papers: Explorations into Children’s Literature, 23(1), pp. 1–16. doi:10.21153/pecl2015vol23no1art1123.

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