Shaun Tan’s The Arrival: A Journey from a Discipline Society to a Control Society

نویسندگانزهراسادات طاهری
همایشthe International Graphic Novel and Comics Conference
تاریخ برگزاری همایش2024-07-10 - 2024-07-12
محل برگزاری همایش13 - Norwich
ارائه به نام دانشگاهUniversity of East Anglia
نوع ارائهسخنرانی
سطح همایشبین المللی

چکیده مقاله

Shaun Tan’s The Arrival: A Journey from a Discipline Society to a Control Society Zahra Taheri (she/her) Abstract Introduction: Shaun Tan’s The Arrival (2006) is considered as one of the most successful graphic novels carrying off multiple awards and attracting critics’ views. Describing the experience of immigration, Shaun provides the reader with wordless illustrations portraying such a journey and its hardship. The illustrations picture an estranged familiar world, in which elements of the past and the future have been intermingled. In Shaun’s narrative the reader like the main character comes across a-half-realistic, a-half-fantastic world. Findings: The narrative’s world has its own type of language, food, animals, and transportation systems, which differ from the current reality, and induce a space to question the oppressive systems and to harbor renewed hopes of change. These features along with the happy ending of the man’s reunion with his wife and daughter have caused many critics to dub the text as polyphonic and utopian. The latter feature is particularly overemphasized due to the haven the strange, high-tech land seems to have provided for different oppressed groups. Oddly have few critics focused on the way that the oppressive system of capitalism has been maintained in the new land. Nor has much attention been paid to the surveillance the biopolitical system practices in Shaun’s novel. Conclusion: This paper, thus, tries to discuss how Shaun’s novel has just represented a transition from one controlling system to another using Ajana’s theory of biosurveillance. The seeming fairy-tale ending can be a reflection of such transition, or the presence of a domineering, oppressive biopolitical system has been established in the novel. Keywords: biosurveillance, biopolitical system, Discipline Society, Control Society, Shaun Tan

کلیدواژه‌ها: biosurveillance, biopolitical system, Discipline Society, Control Society, Shaun Tan