Shaun Tan The Rabbits Essay

The Rabbits by John Marsden and Shaun Tan is a simple but revealing picture book that satirically depicts the historical tragedy of the past aboriginals during the first and last settlement of the Europeans and ridiculing the Europeans behaviour using animal illustrations. The book is set in an indigenous point of view with the specific use of words and illustrations, as the story is told and viewed by the unexpected arrival of an unknown species called “The Rabbits.” This gives the readers an insight of what the story will be about and by using such illustrations that portrays the two as animals will position the readers into showing the emotions felt by the indigenous and the destructive prowess of the Europeans.

The illustration of the book shows a vivid colour of the land with the array of indigenous symbols, but changed slowly as the arrival of the rabbits with is culture manifested in the land of the numbats. This gave the readers a sense of realism into the story as the destruction on the homes of the indigenous species has been clearly defined, illustrating not only the sorrow of the people but the

Although the author’s words are simple, they create a mood into the illustrations that truly emphasise the emotion of the indigenous point of view. Viewers can than feel more of what they can see, an example of this is when the authors used different sized text in “stole our children.” This text with the illustration can truly create an effect on the way it is read and viewed by, making viewers feel empathy as the size of each words shrinks defining the children’s positon as they get further away from their parent. This attains the Europeans guilt on the choices they had made as the story is seen in the indigenous point of view on how they suffered due to the past horrendous choices made by the Europeans at that