Reading Images: The Effects of Illustrations and other Visuals in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Abstract

Both Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close engage with a large variety of visual deviations from text. These visuals do not just illustrate the story, but help tell the narrative, without them a part of the story would be lost. These visual deviations create a different reading experience for its readers, through the illustrations, images, photographs and other visuals the reader gets pulled into the text in a different way than if they were not there. The reader’s personal engagement with the images through their own references, culture, and memories create a unique reading of the novels.