The Red Tree

The red tree is a picture book in which the persona struggles to overcome their turmoil in her inner self. The persona embarks on an imaginative journey to find their true inner self. Ironically, she has been looking for a solution in the world; however this solution has been inside of her.

Similar to Tennyson, Tan explores the isolation of society and the purpose of life. In the opening panels of his picture book, Tan presents a persona who is searching for purpose. The front cover shows an isolated young girl positioned on a boat. Tan has presented this notion of isolation through the use of sombre, dull colours to suggest a sense of isolation and despair from the rest of the world as she is by herself. Tan has implied the boat as a salient feature to explore her physically entering a journey, the reflection of herself and the boat suggests she is drifting away, however the fact that the boat is made from paper suggest the unstableness of this journey she is about to encounter, tan uses the paper boat to foreshadow the meaning of introsprectum. The other salient feature Tan establishes is the colour of the girl's hair and the leaf on the water. Tan has united these two features together as he uses the leaf as a metaphor of the girls inner self and hope she has trying to find however tan positions the leaf on the water to suggest that it is drifting and that she should stop looking for her hope and self as it is something you find mentally not physically. This idea is continued in the first page where Tan has positioned the girl in a setting of isolation, with her standing on a chair holding a megaphone to suggest she is unheard and isolated, Tan reinforce this idea my positioning the girl standing to convey being unheard by holding a megaphone to portray she is looking for attention for people to notice her as she I isolated, Tan establishes this to convey how the girl is yearning to be a part of society. The audience is therefore positioned by Tan to feel the girl's isolation through the imaginative journey she embarks on.