The Daytripper Chapter Summary

English 116

‘Major Project Two: Summary of and Response to a Graphic Novel’

In the Graphic Novel “Daytripper” by Moon, Fábio and Gabriel Bá, we explore a miracle child Brás de Oliva Domingos. In each chapter of the novel we uncover Brás’s life; furthermore, explaining and revealing people and events that have influenced his life in addition making him into the man he is at the end of “Daytripper”. Brás’s story is filled with all his life’s little and big moments that keep including his demise. Brás is a young writer living in his father’s shadow dreaming of starting his own writing career. Throughout the novel, Brás finds himself thinking of one’s own mortality. This really struck home in chapter ten. In the start of chapter ten Brás
is riding home on a train from his doctor’s appointment. This is a very important aspect of the story as he starts to talk about change and moving into different stages in one’s life.
This is strongly enforced by the scenery around the train and the words he used in his decision about what home is, “Brás realized that home is not a physical place at all, but a group of elements like the people you live with—a feeling, a state of mind” (234). He later discussed that he feels safer and at peace knowing that there is a home waiting for him to return too. The next scene is Brás coming home and talking with his wife, Ana, about not continuing treatments for his tumors. The depictions of the close up on Ana’s face with tears running down her face, shows that she cares deeply and worries for Brs safety and wellbeing. Their son, Migrel, is also very worried about his father’s health and the next scene is him having coffee with Brás, talking about his doctor’s appointment. Brás makes a statement about what do doctor’s really know, while lighting a cigarette. This show a contradiction to what Brás is actually meaning behind his words. He then goes to talk about, how he inherited: “two addictions… two passions I always shared with you grandfather” (238). The ‘two addictions’ that Brás is talking about is the love of smoking and writing that he learned from his father
Benedito. Brás is haunted over by his father, who could be the shadowy figure under the tree always watching him throughout the novel. His father plays a huge role in the novel and how it affected Brás towards the end of his life. When Migrel relinquished a letter over to Brás from his father: a quote from Brás “we carry our family inside of us” (239), this echoed the true meaning of why Benedito was overshadowing him. The letter continued to say that now that Brás is a father, the child will become everything to him and his life is now out of his hands. This in a sense became very true, but ending of the letter “…and admit that you don’t need me anymore.” (248) allowed Brás to let go of his shadowing father figure.
Chapter ten takes a very neutral stance on Brás life. This is shown by his acceptance of death and the ending of his life, but also allows him to let go of his shadowing father figure. The characters in this novel are sometimes very sporadic in nature but the ending of this story was very well and carefully thought out. I enjoyed our last moments with the character Brás when he was able to let go and step confidently forward into the unknown.