Summary Of The Story 'Blankets' By Craig Thompson

Love is the most addicting and powerful drug and it can easily make anyone do anything. In Blankets by Craig Thompson, it is almost a narrative story about his first experience with love. Craig had no prior experience or interaction with any girl before Raina, who we find out is his first love. They met at a church camp and soon enough, Craig was infatuated with Raina by their written letters that they exchanged. The scene I chose to analyze is when Craig told Raina he loved her, and from there it went down hill. Thompson used a lot of graphic weight and speech bubbles to give the reader a bigger sense and feel of what’s going on. Craig rushed things with Raina when he was so blinded by the act of love that he didn’t know the consequence of it, which is having the person you love, not love you back. In “Blankets”, Craig conveys the many emotions he felt during the time of confession by adding graphic weight

However, Raina dragged him along even when she knew exactly how he felt. In the scene of Craig confessing his love, “I love you, Raina. I love you, Raina” (346), the scene was stated twice but are in different panels. In my interpretation, it is the same exact scene but placed into two different panels or even pages. This moment was surreal to Craig that it was repeated twice. In the speech bubble, the way “I love you, Raina.” was written is different from the rest of all the speech bubbles, it was in Raina’s handwriting. After that scene Raina says, “OH… CRAIG…”(347), while staring at the painting Craig drew for her and hugging him in a look of regret. The graphic weight used in the last panel where they were hugging was very different from most of the panels, it was very dark but with lines splurring out from behind. Those lines are completely different from the swirls which indicate a sense of helplessness of wishing Craig didn’t tell her that he loved