Jason is just beginning Intro to Rhetoric which uses State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America as textbook. Many years ago (10) another student wrote an essay on Joe Sacco’s inimitable style, but in Jason’s foray into the unit, he hit a line drive that kept on sailing until … HOMERUN!
One of the most perplexing things about Joe Sacco’s graphic essay on Oregon is the overall negative tone. Perhaps this is simply Sacco’s style, but is Sacco aiming to portray Oregon as a place for people with a sense of inadequacy? The short answer is that he does not. For the long answer, we have to examine the purpose of the heavy tone applied to the essay.
We know that Sacco sees Oregon in a positive light. He establishes this in the first cell of the entire graphic essay, where he tells the reader that he’s “lived in Oregon on and off” since he was 14. If Sacco truly does not view Oregon in a positive light, he would not have “lived in Oregon on and off,” as he implies that he had returned to the state from other places; he may have had his grievances, but he loves the state anyway. Why would he return to a place that he does not want to live in?
Also, although he is seemingly in a war with Portland’s weather, we see through his self-deprecation and regular discomfort that he is averse to disorder. We see this in how he claims to suffer in any weather, perhaps the most disorderly thing on Earth. He wipes mud off of the dog before letting it inside on the “polished, hardwood floor,” and he portrays his discomfort visually when Amalie trails mud on the floor. He is a man of order, which he shows with his system for not losing umbrellas; he attempts to counteract the variability of weather by always carrying an umbrella with him.
On the other hand, he manages to change within his framework of order throughout the graphic essay, to the point where he welcomes the enriching (gentrification) of the Pearl District. The last bubble, “It will matter that much less whether it rains or shines,” does not have a distinct character attached to it. The cell seems to follow Amalie’s line of thinking, but it seems like Sacco’s thought too. In a sense, Sacco’s essay on Oregon is a journey of embracing the disorderly characteristics of his life, as by the end of the essay, Sacco seems to imply that moving downtown would help him get over his issues with weather.
The twenty-three-year-long time span of the essay depicts this journey toward fully accepting the chaotic nature of Oregon (as depicted through the weather) through the overall negative tone. Sacco communicates to the reader that to truly appreciate the state of Oregon one must see past the rainy gloom of Portland and look, perhaps, to the desert that his friend, Mike, painted. Sacco aims to portray Oregon as a blank slate, and it can only be what the reader wants it to be, similarly to how Sacco had to craft his experience of Oregon until he could see past the weather.
