A Critical Evaluation of Southern Cross: A Novel of the South Seas

Hyde, Laurence. Southern Cross: A Novel of the South Seas. Montreal: Drawn and

Creator, 2007.

Laurence Hyde was born in England in 1914 but lived in Canada most of his life in Toronto. He passed away in 1987. Hyde contributed a great deal to Canadian culture through his work in The National Film Board of Canada. In the 1950’s at least one of Hyde’s designs became a Canadian postage stamp. Throughout his life, Laurence Hyde felt strongly against using atomic weapons in war and was “furious with the death toll in Japan and the continued proliferation of atomic weapons” (Drawn and Quarterly par 3). His feelings against nuclear weapons are clearly shown throughout Southern Cross: A Novel of the South Seas. The story occurs in the time of The Cold War and is about American soldiers coming to “protect” the natives of a Polynesian island by removing them so they will not be hurt by the blasts of atomic bombs. One of the soldiers attempts to rape one of the women and is then killed in a fight with the women’s husband. The family hides and, after a thorough search, the Americans leave with the uprooted Polynesian tribe. Atomic bombs are then released near the island and the family left in hiding dies from the radiation. The last frame is of one of the little boys in the family crying with no one to protect him.

Southern Cross: A Novel of the South Seas is an important contribution to the collection of wordless graphic novels in several ways. First of all it is one of the best examples which I read which demonstrate the important messages graphic novels can provide. This book is also a valuable contribution because of the art form Hyde uses for his pictures. All of the pictures in Southern Cross are black and white wood-cut engravings. Creating stories with wood-cut engravings is not a simple task and is a very long process. Each picture is engraved into a piece of wood and must be very carefully cut because it is very simple to make an error but almost impossible to erase the mistake. The black and white pictures are also quite startling and as George Walker states, “the effect is like our colourful world [being] torn down to its base so that we can read the underlying message” (Walker 13). Walker further explains that without different shades of black or grey the black and white starkness creates a much more powerful meaning in the wordless novel. Each page contains one black and white rectangle engraving and the rest of the page is bare white. The simple pages allow the reader to focus right onto the picture with no further distractions. The story sequence is simple, easy to follow, and very powerful. In the past ten years Southern Cross has been republished a couple of times which is important because it is reintroducing an art form which is not often used anymore. Reprinting this novel is an excellent contribution to graphic novels because it shows the depth wordless stories can reach.

I chose to do a close examination of Southern Cross: A Novel of the South Seas because this story made me feel the most emotional out of all of the wordless graphic novels I have read. I decided to look at Southern Cross because I wanted to find out how wordless novels create so much emotion and the simple, yet, powerful pictures of this book demonstrate their ability to influence feelings. I enjoyed almost all of the books I examined for this project but I think Laurence Hyde’s graphic novel is superior in presenting its message. The multiple editions of this novel also demonstrate the enduring value of Southern Cross. It is a novel which people should not forget.

Works Cited:

Lorah, Michael. “Southern Cross on Newsarama.com.” Drawn and Quarterly. June 2007. Web. 16 Nov 2009.

Walker, George A. Graphic Witness: Four Wordless Graphic Novels. Ontario: Firefly books. 2007.

Further reviews:

Lorah, Michael. “Southern Cross on Newsarama.com.” Drawn and Quarterly. June 2007. Web. 16 Nov 2009.

Pantaleo, Sylvia. “Pohadky.” CM Magazine. 14(12). Feb 2008. Web. 16 Nov 2009.