Luke Healy - Americana

Genre

graphic non fiction

audience

people of the generation emigration, fans of graphic novels, adventure enthusiasts

Mode

written/drawn

purpose

highlight different family circumstances, the process of grief and cultural identity

Added context

The great famine (1845-1852)- where the Irish were forced to live off of potatoes

2008 financial crisis that affected Irelands economy bringing back mass emigration

Heavy travelled the Pacific crest trail to the Mexican border (2500 miles)

Borderless panels

allows us to go on the journey with Healy whilst enabling the transitions from writing to graphic text to be cohesive

written format

more intimate and confessional - almost like a journal

panoramic long-shot views of American landscapes

reflects the pysiological reality of Healuy moving away from Ireland- familiarly and culturally

Focus on the bigger picture

shows Healys investment in his journey and the location

phone conversation with his mother

sandwiched between visual panels featuring mountainous terrain and Healys friends in America- shows his guilt being away from his family

butterfly motif

bridges the distance between Ireland and America

cultural reference- Irish superstition (spirit of the dead)

solitary positioning in the final panels

shows a sense of sorro, heartache and denial of death

asyndetic listing

'James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Elizabeth Bowen'

-ironic- part of the great emigration

Juxtaposition

'A big party; a funeral for their Irish life'

- confliction of leaving

Humour

'unless i include a disclaimer about a hundred mile hole somewhere in Northern California'

Refelctive temporal discourse marker

'Now, i dont care. Not even a little'

Personification

'It stabs at me that i'm not there'

harsh alliteration

'I clutch and cling so tight as to crush'