Q2 Review

Literary canon is very specific and has roots in historical texts; while these texts may
be useful for teaching certain aspects about English literature, it is “insensitive to the
diverse nature of contemporary societies.” [Fleming 2008: 8]
To engage with texts outside of what past scholars have considered ‘must
reads’ is to diversify the sorts of texts consumed, to create a more dynamic and broad
literary experience. Such variety provides wider understandings of contemporary and
classic modes of thought and perception.

Popular literature is generally considered more ‘fun’ or recreational than highbrow,

classic or canonical works and is more accessible to diverse audiences. To fully
engage in reading, “students need to connect with the literature on their own level.”
[Sanders, 2011: 2] If readers are passionate about the texts that they consume, rather
than see them as a chore, then that allows for a more productive literary and learning
experience. High school teachers can use non-canonical literature to inspire a class to
better appreciate reading as a skill. Once students are able to fully engage with texts
that they enjoy, they then can be linked to more classic, scholarly texts and this way
popular literature can be used as a springboard to more academic or canonical works.

To read is to silently engage with a written text in order for ideas to flourish mentally,
and it is an effective way to accumulate knowledge and build intellectual and
conceptual thinking. Reading requires interpretation – in a novel, characters
appearances and voices are constructed in thought, even in academic texts whereby
meaning and intent must be extrapolated from composed sentences.
While this allows for critical thinking and analysis, it does not replicate any
form of genuine social interaction.
Communication is conducted in numerous ways when interacting with people in face-
to-face circumstances. To understand a person, various signals such as facial and
bodily expressions, and tone of voice are interpreted rather than just the words that
they say. It is important for positive social contact to be able to infer suggestions from
physical gestures and oral signals from other people. These skills can only be
enhanced with practice.
Engaging texts that are constructed using primarily visual and audial
mediums, such as graphic novels and podcasts, provides a means of doing so without
being involved in actual conversation.
Texts that include pictorial and vocal components should be implemented
alongside written books to improve multiple communicative and literary skills.
Visual storytelling can be conducted in the form of graphic novels, and audial in
podcasts.

To demonstrate and discuss the qualities of visual and audial literary mediums, the
wordless graphic novel The Arrival by Shaun Tan, and the radio-podcast S-Town
narrated by Brian Reed will be reviewed. These texts are valuable because they are
more than just uses of imagery and sound to construct a story, they focus on and
develop a single character as they struggle through difficult circumstances. This
provides insight into the mental state and psychology of an inexperienced traveller
voyaging to a new and strange land, and a depressed reclusive resident of a poor town

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in Alabama.

Tan’s The Arrival centres on a man, living with his family in an unwholesome and
oppressive city who decides to leave, travelling by train and boat to a new, more
developed country in order to establish better and more hopeful conditions for the
family’s future.
He details facial and bodily expressions of numerous characters to visually
demonstrate their emotional states. His use of facial expression to convey thought and
emotion starts at the very outset of the book, with a variety of portraits, which
positions readers to consider different expressions.
In page 16 of the second chapter, the traveller has arrived and is being
processed through Customs and Immigration, and to demonstrate that he has trouble
communicating verbally with the consultant, Tan has constructed twelve panels that
focus entirely on his portrait. In each panel, a different gesture is illustrated – from a
confused, uncertain look in the first, a shrug in the sixth, hand gestures to help with
articulation in the ninth and an exhausted face-palm in the eleventh. These bodily
expressions are universally recognised; so the reader is positioned to understand the
context of the scenario and relate to and understand the experience and feelings of the
traveller. Without language to orient the reader, interpretation is fully necessary, as
each person may have a different perspective, then intellectual discussions can be
conducted – exchanging and providing evidence for ideas.
An example of fully image-based communication can be found on page 26 of
the second chapter. A sequence of ten panels shows the traveller studying an
incomprehensible language, comparing it to a floor-map of the city in order to find
direction. As the text is unrecognisable to both the reader and protagonist; his feelings
of confusion are made very apparent and relatable. The only form of communication
he can properly conduct is drawing, and he uses this to convey his desire – to find a
bed.
This shows that pictorial representations can effectively convey intention and
meaning to strangers, without having to utilise specific language. Such is the purpose
of the visual medium Tan has constructed: it can be read by anyone regardless of
language background. The alien text, city, animals and food will similarly stump all
readers, creating a commonality between all who engage in the text. This will be
valuable in a classroom setting as it will situate students to talk about interpretations
the situation and position them to discuss inferences of visual communication.

In contrast, S-town engages readers entirely with an audial medium – Brian Reed
conducts interviews with the eccentric John B. McLemore and other residents of the
small town and constructs a podcast with narration and music to complete the
presentation. “The medium relies solely on sounds, and in the absence of visual
stimuli the listener is urged to create images in their mind.” [Lindgren 2016: 27]
The interviewees are not reading from a script; but voicing genuine responses and
reactions to Reed’s questioning. Many of the responses are not immediately articulate,
but involve umming, stuttering and rambling, where at times, the meaning is hard to
infer. For example: “I am 49 years old. Or is it 48? Well, I'm closer to 49. I should
have—boy, if you use this in the future, you'll sure have to have a cuckoo bird bleep
it.” [S-Town, Ch.1.] Conversation in the real world is not as organised as in a written
text, but can be sporadic, unfocused and quite inconsistent.
The podcast is not a scripted form of storytelling, and gives insight to real and
“personal narratives” which are “intrinsically linked to the intimate nature of the

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audio medium.” [Lindgren, 2016: 23]

The quality of these texts is not limited to the communicative medium, but detail the
inner psychology of the central persons.

In his ramblings, John B. McLemore makes reference to his stages of depression,

describing his house Alabama as a “prison of [his] own making.” [S-Town, Ch.1.]
When prompted to open up about his deeper feelings, he mentions he’s never had
anyone to “ask me, I guess, what I’m depressed about.” Before opening up and
admitting that responsibility towards his mother, puppies and even the garden have
kept him in trapped in the decrepit town, and that has weighed on him heavily.

At first, these ramblings are framed as relatively innocuous. But when it is

discovered by Reed that there was no murder the second chapter ends with the
revelation that John B. McLemore has committed suicide midway through the radio
programme.

The Arrival, depicts the traveller’s inner psychology and experiences by constructing
visual metaphors linking to struggle, suffrage and hope.
The fifth page of the first chapter introduces a spiked tentacle whose shadow is
projected upon a wall, above where the family walks. The following frame is a full-
double page image of the town, where the enormous dark tentacles engulf the entirety
of the streets.
There are no explanations of this monstrous being, but a clue is presented
midway into the third chapter. A spiky tail rises out of an urn, and that causes the
traveller to recoil in shock. It is shown that the tail belongs to a cat, though the
traveller is still traumatised. To demonstrate what instigated such reaction, he draws a
spiked tentacle over some buildings and shows it to a stranger. The following panels
depict a horror seep into the stranger’s eyes, represented by fire. The border of the
page transitions from white to black, and a two-page feature of enormous, masked
people vacuuming the citizens of a city away.
The stranger is then depicted hiding and fleeing from the enormous militaristic
vacuumers, before fleeing a crumbled town towards the shore he escapes to the new
city.

My interpretation of the visual metaphor of the spiked tentacle is: the after-
effect of war, however, there may be other evaluations, such which can be used for
discussions in a classroom setting.

Readers are presented with metaphorical imagery throughout The Arrival and
subjected to curious descriptions and explanations pertaining to the behaviour of John
B. McLemore in S-Town without clarification of what things truly mean. As it is up
to readers/listeners to interpret such open-ended questions and come to their own
conclusions, it can be a good class room technique and engage in discussion about
interpretation of meanings in a book.

A difference between the main character in The Arrival is that even though his
circumstances were difficult and limited, he made some choices to leave and change
his situation, where as McLemore did not attempt make definitive choices to change

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his condition and lived in regret of such hesitancy. These contexts might allow the
English teachers to discuss the meaning and significance of choice in extreme
circumstances.

One question in particular haunts the entirety of S-Town, and contemplation of it

delves deep into McLemore’s inner psychology: did he know that there was no
murder? If not, perhaps his actions and concerns were genuine and authentic; yet if
so, exactly what inspired him to invite Brian Reed to Woodstock, Alabama to
investigate an incident that did not occur?
If the belief was true, then, what was the cause of the suicide?
If McLemore was simply lonely and called the radio-station to seek company,
then his suicide could be explained by the realisation that Brian Reed had found this
out, and dismantled the entire case; completely discrediting him.

Such lines of thought, open opportunities to evoke classroom discussions, and can be
used to formulate essay questions for students to discuss their ideas in relation to in-
text evidence.

Rather than only studying text-based literary works for educational purposes, the
implementation of audial and visual mediums will allow for a broader learning
experience. These modes of storytelling develop other skills, from interpreting artistic
expression and visual representations of people, places and abstract ideas; to the
comprehension of vocal gestures and musical influence.
Such skills are extremely useful in every day life, and students would greatly benefit
from exposure to and interaction with these literary styles.
Both S-Town and The Arrival allow for comprehensive indulgence in non-text-based
forms of literature that allow for contemplation and discussion of the literary form, of
confronting themes and of human psychology.

References:

Fleming, M.F., 2008. The Literary Canon: implications for the teaching of language
as subject. Language as a subject within languages of education, 1-10.

Lindgren, M.L, 2017. Personal narrative journalism and podcasting. The Radio
journal- International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media, Volume 14, number 1,
23-41.

Sanders, A.H.M.S, 2011. Teaching to the Canon or the Students: The Use of Popular
Literature in ELA Classrooms. English Master’s Thesis. USA: State University of
New York.

Stitcher. 2017. S-Town. 1-7. [ONLINE]. 28 March 2017. Available from:

https://stownpodcast.org/ [Accessed: 5 November 2017].

Tan, S., 2017. The Arrival. Hachette Australia.

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