It's always critical of how a story grabs the reader's attention at the start. A lot of authors sell the "meat" right off at the beginning. "The Arrival" did just the opposite, the story starts off with something we commonly see in everyday life and progresses into a completely different world of wildness.This is also one of the most fasinating part of the book - the big contrast of life.
We can see this compare and contrast pattern throughout the entire book. Tan is repeatedly comparing the events taken place in the story. For example, the layout of the first page and last page are exactly the same, but the content of the images has changed. The paper crane changed into a paper creature, the pot changed into a food of the new world, the newspaper changed into another language and etc. All of the elements emphasize that life has been the same way, but better. Tan also compare and contrasted the experiences of the different people we saw throughout the book, which in my understanding, are to emphasize the same thing. The young lady who originally work as a slave now gained her freedom. The couple escaped from the giants now built their little family in the new world, with their child. The old man found his peace away from the war. At the end, when a foreign girl came to ask for directions, the scene immediately reflected the main character's experience when he first came to the new world. The scene lifted my emotion to a higher level because I know the story is going to continue on with someone else.
The contrast is the major component which brings the reader's feelings into the book. Only if when we see the bad side, we see the goodness of life. I believe this is what made the book so interesting.
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