A Well-Told Story: Using Cartoons to Share an Experience

E-Page 15
 Analyze 
Use the basic features.

Beaton, like other cartoonists, uses drawings to enhance—and often to stand in for—written descriptions of actions, people, or thoughts. She also uses word balloons instead of speaker tags for dialogue, as well as separate frames to convey new scenes or the passage of time. Even though the conventions that she follows are different from those followed by writers of purely textual narratives, Beaton creates a compelling story of a remembered event.

ANALYZE & WRITE

Write one or two paragraphs analyzing Beaton’s use of cartoonists’ techniques to tell a story:

  1. How does the cartoon format facilitate a dialogue between Beaton’s current-day and younger selves? How would the reader’s experience have changed if Beaton had told the story solely in words?
  2. Look over all the drawings, especially the one in the final frame. What do the drawings convey that words don’t or can’t? Conversely, does the cartoon leave you with any questions that would have been more satisfyingly answered in words?

    Question