Analysis of Life and death in Day Tripper by Moon and Bras - Essay Example

Teacher Life and death in Day Tripper The book en d Day Tripper is not a typical book because it also includes comic strip in its narration where its stories are told in a non-linear manner. Meaning, each chapter in the book begins with a new story oblivious to the story that preceded it and always ended in death. It is written by Fabio Moon and Gabriel Bras and narrated stories about death in different kinds of life in both fantasy and realism style. The cycle of life and death is present in every chapter of the book because it wants its reader to understand the meaning of life and death and in so doing, hoped that the reader may live their life to the fullest. The book is written from the different lives of Bras in Brazil. The character of Bras was familiarized to the reader through a short introduction that tell us that Bras is a writer. Being a writer, Bras was able to tell his narrative in an unusual way such as rendering them in a comic strip and the effective use of rhetorical devices. It is also observable that unlike the regular book where the story is told in a linear fashion where the succeeding chapters follows the chapters the precede them, Bras de Olivias Dominguez Day Tripper always end its story at the end of each chapter with the event of death. The succeeding chapter starts with a new story oblivious with what happened in the chapter that precedes it. The stories in its chapters may have narrated through the visual comic strip but it does not mean that the topic of Bras is trivial. It is in fact heavily peppered with philosophy that suggests to its readers to value and embrace life at its fullest. And unlike other books which contained philosophy topics, Day Tripper is different in a manner that it argues its point of view through the stories of its characters and Bras’s life. Through this narrative and visual aid of the comic strip, the book becomes more engaging to the reader albeit it contains serious topic such as life and death, living life and significance of death as merely part of life. In a way, Bras attempts to change the perspective of death as cruel tyrant that used to be feared to a kind messenger that transforms to whom and what we wanted to be. Death is central to Bras narrative in his book Day Tripper. This topic is highlighted in several ways. First, there is the non-linear narrative of the story that each story in the chapter which ends with death to emphasize what is Bras is trying to tell the readers. Second is the effective use of rhetorical devices such as analogy, escapism, images, polysemous and juxtaposition that helps to highlight the lesson of life and death. Analogy is the use of similarity between two objects that render more understanding when these objects are compared. Analogy was used in comparing life and death in the narrative but eventually settled the seemingly conflicting nature of the two by making death part of life. This philosophical point of view in the book became easier to digest due to the device of analogy which the reader can easily understand. This was evident in in Bras dialogue to his friend “ahh, but you know all too well that death is a part of life, my friend Bras: yes, you’re right, death is part of life. Friend: and so you’re family, now lets back to work” (pg. 21). In discussing death, Bras did not confine himself to the literal interpretation of death as something unpleasant but instead juxtaposed it with its opposite meaning to effectively emphasize the point that death is really not bad as it sound. Life by itself has its downturns too as he emphasized to make it easier for his audience to accept the inevitability of death and in so doing, would make the reader better live their lives to the fullest. For example, he defined the opposite of death using the rhetorical device of escapism and dreams as “the future you have written and wished for is not always there waiting for you. It usually isn’t at all what you expected…. And it is called life” (p. 35). So in a sense, life is not always pleasant as we have hoped it to be. The other complexity of life was also discussed by Bras subtly that if the reader will not see the juxtaposition used by Bras, they may interpret it in its literal meaning and thereby get lost in the translation of the story. This was evident in the scene in the plaza where a juxtaposition of reality versus fantasy was used when Bras was about to see Jorge for a drink. On his way, a boy sold Bras a necklace that did not want but was left with no choice but bought it. He then had drink with Jorge where they compared their necklace and the subtle juxtaposition became obvious because the two of them were wondering why a lace had to be sold to them as if they were tourist when Jorge was clearly a native Brazilian from his complexion and even showed his green lace on his wrist saying “well, we are foreigners here”. Except that however, Bras is coming from “planet white” while Jorge is not from “Italy, Russia or Egypt or wherever”. The complexity of life is further explained through the use of polysemous which is an idea that has multiple meanings particularly in the boat scene where Bras was drifted with a woman where he said that he is fine being with her in the boat if she is, justifying that “no one wants to be alone, right?” The woman however replied “why is it so many people are?” Bras counter-argued that they may be just too busy but the woman rebutted “but you always have time in Salvador” (43) which is full of meanings. Again, this is consistent with the idea that life “usually isn’t at all what you expected” (35) and being such, it may become easier for the reader to absorb that death is also a party of life and that it is not really as bad as we thought it to be. Bras however is not always poignant in his interpretation of life in the book. After all, his intention in the book is to make his readers live life to the fullest by fostering the understanding that death is also a part of life. He may not be prolific with words in depicting the beauty of life for one to embrace it, his rhetorical device of using images that provide insight that the text could not do is more effective. This was evident when his character was struck with the image of a woman in the grocery. There was no dialogue in the strip but the image of the beautiful tells a thousand story of how beautiful life could be that despite everything, it is still better to live it at the fullest. The book is well received by the reading public and this could be attributed to the unusual format of the book of using comic strip in its narrative, non-linear approach to story-telling and effective use of rhetorical device. Through the effective combination of these three approaches, the book was able to engage the readers in the philosophical discourse in the book. The seemingly heavy and often avoided topic of life and death became interesting and engaging to the reader through the effective use of rhetorical devices of analogy, escapism/dream, juxtaposition, polysemous and images that words cannot convey. Read More