A graphic memoir drawn by Alan Moore, story of Al Davison's Life through hardships of mistreatment and disability and how he overcame every obstacle to find happiness

1. The Spiral Cage
by Al Davison

2. Intro – Al Davison
• Comic book writer and artist
• Born in New Castle, England
• Now resides in Coventry
• Best known for ‘the Spiral Cage’
• Born with Spina Difida

3. Plot
• Hardship of Al Davison’s life, born crippled
with multiple symptoms that labelled him
handicap. It is a story of how his passion and
strong will overcame hardships and obtained
happiness.
• There were also doubts on his disability(over
exaggerated maybe?)

4. Spina Bifida
• ‘Distortion of left hip caused by malformation
of the lateral surface of the iliac bone’
• ‘Severely distorted both femurs…’
• ‘As in such severe cases as this he will be
paralyzed from the waist down…’
• ‘We can’t even say he will survive this first
operation. He is literally a ‘hopeless case’’
(Al Davison, the Spiral Cage, page 14)

5. Purpose
• Purpose of this memoir is to encourage those
who are labelled or told they are abnormal to
beat through the hardship, and to show
everyone deserves happiness
• Also for the story teller to tell the audience
about his childhood and how he became the
man he is today

6. Al Davison, Page 32, 33

7. Themes
• Idea of this graphic memoir is to let the
audience feel the mistreatment that people
with disability receive and to show their
thoughts and desires for happiness is just like
everyone else’s.
• Also to show that no matter how you are
born, with effort and motivation, impossibility
is just a word that haven’t been proven wrong
yet

9. Structure
• For some it was hard to follow due to comic book
structure.
• It seems as by going back and forth between child
hood and adulthood, it shows the impacts and
development from both times. Also by dividing
into chapters with each chapter categorizing a
specific time of his life, it makes the audience
slowly relate/empathize with the character. Also
each chapter has second title to describe the
theme of the chapter from both his childhood
and adulthood

10. Voice and tone
• The section in the beginning of the book where
he is a child and Al Davison chooses to show what
happened when he told his mother that some
day soon he would be walking, was done
perfectly. The smoothness of how each frame
connected, the emotion shown not only in the
verbal contexts but the grouping of the images he
chose to use. At that age there is no way he could
have remembered those details, but by getting
secondary information from his family members
he would have been able to piece together a
smooth story.

11. • Tone of the narrator is calm and not too
emotionally bent on the experience yet
explains as the events occurred. Tone of each
sub characters extremely clear; mam –
worrisome and willing to make sacrifices for
her son, friends during childhood – didn’t
treat him any differently because of his
disability, bullies – should die

12. Significance of title
• He uses more black in the book during this times
he is struggling most and has the most disjointed
out of place story aspects. This too of course is a
chose so that the reader can visually see and get
the mood of the plot before even reading
anything. Most times there are very few words.
That is the benefit to graphic novels. you want
the visuals to tell the story not the words. Much
like how a photographer uses photos as a
narrative with out any text.
• (Al Davison, title page)

13. Historical, social and cultural context
(3 aspects)
• Spacka: Term used in England for the word
‘retard’ throughout history, Buddhism: finding
enlightenment within oneself to become the
stage ‘Buddha’, Cultural reference of belief of
super hero (Superman and Batman
references)
• (Al Davison, Page 67)

15. How everyone in the group relates to
memoir (theme, characters, plot)
• Leah Eke, Neil Wilson: Couldn’t really relate
• Taehun Bang: As someone who attend school to
become a good story teller, it is an amazing story he
told of his life. I can relate with the theme and plot of
the story in sense of being alienated; due to racism and
difficulty of language barrier first time I arrived in
Canada. As for relating to characters, out of everyone
in the memoir I could relate the best with Al’s friends
during his childhood, helping him to walk and being
friends regardless of difference. I was vice president of
‘Best Buddies’ program that is similar to a big brother
program, for two years.

16. Outstanding scenes
• Page 28: Attempts of walking
• Page 32: Al proving the words impossible and
hopeless wrong by walking towards his
mother and doctor
• Page 77: Al’s finally over coming his disability
of ‘not being able to walk’/’can’t walk
properly’ by destroying all his walking
equipment
• Page 118: Finding love

17. Characterization
• The way every sub characters were portrayed simply
with their actions and reactions showed if they
respected Al, if they thought they were better, if they
equally treated Al regardless of disability, and also
showed their roles in Al’s life; as positive or negative
figure that influenced Al to be a better man in the end.
Also the way Al is portrayed differently in each chapter,
in both childhood and adulthood sense.
• Beginning – Childhood: hopeful, motivated, nothing
could put him down. Adulthood: hopeless, scary,
questionable of what he is doing at his age.

18. • Rise of interest – Childhood: showed atmosphere of his
daily life. How he was picked on, in what sense it made
a vivid memory in his mind. Adulthood: Shows his love
affair, his circle of friends, how he relates to people.
Kind of gives hope for the audience and gives the
feeling of empathy.
• Climax – Childhood: bullied extremely, makes audience
feel regret for mistreating anyone, shows the ugliest
sense of humanity. Adulthood: Shows achievements
through belief and hard work. Beats the disability with
passion and finds peace with his belief.
• End – Childhood: The only part I was confused and
wondered the representation of abstractness of the art
and his imagination. Adulthood: Even though he is
portrayed as ‘normal’ in the end, in mindset of the
audience he is more than that due to the life he lived
and showing how he beat all the obstacles.

19. Images
• As art students, we looked down on the style
of the art before reading it. However by the
end of the memoir, we realized the style also
has representation of ugliness it was trying to
tell. Truly magnificent
• Neil: Illustration, Taehun: Animation, Leah:
Photography

20. Action
• Truly glad he learned martial arts to protect
himself. None of us could imagine picking on
someone with a disability, yet people in the
memoir picked on him just BECAUSE he has
disability. Actions throughout the memoir go
from saddle happiness like playing with
friends to violence and how people mistreated
him beyond our imagination.

21. Colour
• Black and White. Colour of the book itself is
terrific representation of the story in ways
that it is mix of warm colors and cold colors
and majority of the book being black. Warm
representing the warmth he received from
friends and family, cold representing the
sadness he received from people’s words and
actions, black representing evil within people.
• (Al Davison, title page)

22. Annotated Bibliography
• Davison, Al. The Spiral Cage. Los Angeles:
Active Images, Astral Gypsy Press, 2003. N.
pag. Print.
• Buddhist Scripture
• Muhammad Ali saying

23. The End