Reading together – Chapter 1 and Opening
1)Look at the inside front cover. Why might the author include all these different people?
2)Look at the first title page and the second title page. Why might there be two? What purpose might the first one serve?
3)Look at the first page of chapter 1, with nine panels. What do these objects have in common? Where would you likely seem them? If a narrative begins with exposition, what are we learning here?
4)Look at the second page of the chapter, with nine panels. What sequence of events happens here and continues onto the following, single-paneled page?
5)Look at the large panel of our protagonist and his wife. What is their relationship like? How is their quality of life?
6)Look at the following two pages, what are the family preparing for? What unexpected item appears in the full-page panel? How should a reader view that item?
7)Look at the following spread, if the image is not to be taken literally, what might it mean?
8)On the following two pages, what is the significance of the paper crane? Why is the woman crying?
9)Look at the final, full-page panel. Why are we left with this image? How is it supposed to make us feel? Where is the protagonist?
Watch this to 0:35 and define:
Signifier:
Signified:
Now, look at each of the following signifiers and explain how we go from what is given to any ultimate potential meanings
Signifier / Signified (Think about the final meaning, what you needed to already know to reach that meaning and how a different individual’s meaning could potentially shift or change).cat
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Roland Barthes describes a text as:
"a galaxy of signifiers, not a structure of signifieds; it has no beginning; it is reversible; we gain access to it by several entrances, none of which can be authoritatively declared to be the main one; the codes it mobilizes extend as far as the eye can read, they are indeterminable...the systems of meaning can take over this absolutely plural text, but their number is never closed, based as it is on the infinity of language..." (S/Z - 1974 translation)
What he is basically saying is that a text is like a tangled ball of threads which needs unravelling so we can separate out the colours. Once we start to unravel a text, we encounter an absolute plurality of potential meanings. We can start by looking at a narrative in one way, from one viewpoint, bringing to bear one set of previous experience, and create one meaning for that text. You can continue by unravelling the narrative from a different angle, by pulling a different thread if you like, and create an entirely different meaning. And so on. An infinite number of times. If you wanted to.
When you began this text, when did you first realize it might be about immigration?
Now ask two others the same. Was it the exact some moment as you did? How many different answers do you imagine exist in this class?
Cut out the following items and paste them into your notes. For each, explain some of the meaning. You will likely not grasp all of it now. We will revisit them.
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