Mariko Tamaki's This One Summer

Improved Essays
The Quiet Character: A Force to Be Reckoned With

As I was reading This One Summer, I was fascinated with how both the author and illustrator created, and defined each of the characters in their own way. Mariko Tamaki seems to put less focus on certain characters. At the same time Jillian Tamaki creates strong visual imagery on those same characters. Specifically speaking, why does Mariko Tamaki put less focus on Evelyn's character, yet Jillian Tamaki portrays her with such strong imagery? Several points in this graphic novel caught my attention. At the very beginning there were several frames that involved Evelyn, Windy, and Rose. Another defining moment for me was when Evelyn and Alice overheard the girls using the word slut. Finally, possibly the most descriptive point was when Evelyn and Alice were processing what had transpired earlier in the night with Jenny. These points that are described make it clear that both Jillian and Mariko have work diligently to convey Evelyn as a strong, and compassionate individual.
…show more content…
The author has kept the dialogue simple, but the illustrator has sketched such strong images. Evelyn embraces Rose like she was her own daughter sends a strong message. A message that Rose completely feels safe in her embrace and that the weight of her troubles had been lifted. The images speak volumes. Evelyn has been drawn with a peaceful, and soft facial expression. Her clothing has been detailed with Lotus flowers. The significance of the lotus flower is one of purity and restraint from judgement. The love and support she shows both Windy and Rose is immeasurable. The image of all three of them embracing shows that Evelyn is a strong support system for the girls. The love that is expressed in this panel is genuine and clear to the readers. Evelyn is a safety net for those who she

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In the eyes of a man of high royalty. This piece speaks to me because even since the bible days’ things have not changed. Women are pushing their bodies to the limit to please men. By doing crash diets, harmful surgeries, and many more unnecessary things. The colors correlates with the sadness in her eyes you can see the pain and hopelessness.…

    • 564 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    W. D. Snodgrass’s “Leaving the Motel” focuses profoundly on language, tone, and symbolism, along with other strategies to express the idea of love as fleeting, yet businesslike. The poem tells a story of the happenings between two people at a motel after a surreptitious sexual meeting. These two people are participating in a secret affair and Snodgrass’s technicality expresses the formality and routine that their connection demands. Although the encounters are businesslike, situations in the poem suggest the two share tenderness and intimacy. However, this is suppressed by the well-organized discerning thoughts and activities of the two lovers as they prepare to leave the motel.…

    • 776 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Brain Caswell explores the themes appearance and reality, showing how appearances can be deceptive and how humans are complex in his novel, Double Exposure. He does this by using the metaphor of double exposure, and characterisation. Caswell also effectively used intertextuality to ensure that the reader has a greater understanding of the main themes, and to convey different ideas that are explored during the novel. Double Exposure deals with ideas of how appearance and reality can be deceptive and the complexity of humans, which is explored through the metaphor of double exposure itself. In art, double exposure is a technique where two or more exposures are changed to create a single image, and has a corresponding meaning in respect of the two images.…

    • 1343 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Junot Diaz’s This Is How You Lose Her is an intricate tale of love, deceptions, and longings. The characters are excellently brought to life by Diaz’s pen accompanied by a storyline that is built from many viewpoints including from a female immigrant named Yasmin. The novel is a compilation of stories revolving around Yunior, the protagonist of the story who tells his readers about the struggles that he had gone through all his life of romance and deceptions that he had made towards his former girlfriends. In this novel This Is How You Lose Her, the theme “love comes with deceptions” is emphasized through the narration of both Yunior, who constantly deceives his girlfriend[s], just to fulfill his manly desire for a beautiful company and also “the longings of immigrant for a place to be called home”, taking Yunior’ s family and Yasmin as they talk about their life and how they yearn for the warmth of their home country when things get difficult.…

    • 1712 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Between the World and Me is a phenomenally written work of literature. A memoir of the life of black Ta’nashi Coates in the form of letter to his fifteen-year-old son. Readers follow him as he goes from a boy in the ghettos of Baltimore, to what he refers to as the Mecca that is Howard, to a man raising his son in a white America. Coates makes good points, but as I continued to read it seems that he contradicts these point. At first glance this book seems like a father’s attempt soothe his son’s uneasiness about his position as a young black man in America, during a time when many young black men are being killed.…

    • 674 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    YOUR TITLE GOES HERE Anna Quindlen’s essay “School’s Out for Summer” focusses on the problems of the school lunch program. One of the main topics she adresses is that some kids aren’t eating as much now that school is out. “ fifteen million students get free or cut-rate lunches at school and breakfast too” but, “only three million chlidren are getting lunches through the federal summer lunch program.” Hunger in the United States is seeming to be a big problem and Quindlen’s wants to change that.…

    • 195 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the short story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, there are many symbols. One can conclude that the overpowering symbols are a “rose” and Emily’s house. As a symbol, the rose is commonly associated with love, romance, and courtship. Ironically, Emily’s story is one of love and a romantic vision. Although there are many references to roses throughout the story, there is never a physical rose given.…

    • 283 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The poem “Where There’s a Wall” by Joy Kogawa, provide one the best way of conveying a message through imagery and very symbolic at the same time. The message of this poem is very simple, but throughout, the author indirectly conveys message about life and she incorporates life concepts (reality). In the poem she mentions, “ where there’s a wall there’s a way around over, or through there’s a gate”, she explicitly states that will be barriers in life but somehow there is always a way out. From the author’s perceptive, she teaches the audience a lesson through her struggles and barriers in life. The main message she conveys in this poem, is whenever you see a barrier if your life, instead of giving of up, try to stand by and figure a way out…

    • 397 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Analysis Essay Can you imagine living in a time when you were judged and treated differently due to your skin color? In If Beale Street Could Talk,the author, James Baldwin, addresses this issue. The book is a mixture of a love story and the issue of racism , injustice, and prejudices. The book takes place in New York, from the viewpoint of a young black women, Tish, who is deeply in love with a young artists, Fonny, who has been arrested for a crime he has not committed. When it is discovered that Tish is pregnant, the families are supportive of the couple along with the drive to get Fonny out of jail.…

    • 887 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In “Behind the Beautiful Forevers” Katherine Boo argues that societies are becoming corrupt because of capitalism’s prevalence in modern societies. Capitalism is creating an economy where products and profits are owned by companies and individuals instead of the government. ("Capitalism" Merriam Webster) Having profits owned by individuals drive owners to create inequitable systems that take advantage of lower class citizens. The systems drive the lower class to compete against one another to create a small profit, that will soon be taken away by the individuals or companies that “own” the profit created by the system.…

    • 820 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Have you ever stopped to look at a rose? At first you will see its fine beauty and presence; however, with a closer look you will find its thorns that are there to protect itself for survival. In the play “Fences” by August Wilson, we are introduced to a character named Rose Maxon. Her first name can be represented with a literal meaning relating the flower. She is a very admirable woman who is also strong and set in her ways.…

    • 1399 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    and she shows us that we can find happiness without change. The house in “A Rose for Emily” symbolizes the loneliness of Emily, and she is proof that we can find happiness…

    • 771 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A well known author William Faulkner, wrote “A Rose For Emily” in this story a rose never physically appears. The rose is however a symbol that lays over the whole story like a blanket. I want to signify the three different symbols that the rose symbolizes throughout the story. Those three symbols that the rose represents would be love, the dream of being loved, and the third one is just me describing what the rose symbolizes to the author.…

    • 547 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The speaker concluded each stanza with the line “one perfect rose.” (ll. 4,8,12) Like mentioned in the second verse, she compared the rose that was given to her with her lovers’ hearts. The rose that he gave her was not just any rose, but a perfect rose. He who gave her the rose is promising perfect love in all aspects.…

    • 1068 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Male dominance is undoubtedly evident and the significance of the rose alludes to the argument that women are subordinate in this short story. Although a rose is never presented in the story, the title implies that the flower is being given to a female. Timothy O'Brien’s journal, Who Arose for Emily?, supports this assertion by connecting it to Miss Emily and Homer Barron’s relationship, “As for the story’s critics, they focus on the cultural symbolism of the rose itself. It can represent Emily as a treasured memory. It can refer to Homer Barron as Emily’s romantic rose, a keepsake rose..” (101).…

    • 1036 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays