In the 1990s a game series started known as Silent Hill. This game series takes a main character into a town that’s warped by a nightmare landscape. The series itself has many common themes that fit in with Freud’s writing “The Uncanny”. Specifically, the second entry in the series aptly titled Silent Hill 2 is a prime example of the uncanny. Through the series’ regular themes, but also in terms of the double and Unheimlich James’ story unfolds and the player is left with a truly emotionally charged horror experience. The usage of the Uncanny gave Konami the ability to create to create a truly nightmarish scenario that Freud himself would have had a field day analyzing. The series itself uses many of the same themes across all of the games.
…show more content…
The game itself borrows heavily from the movie Jacob’s Ladder especially in framing and camera angles. The main character of the game is a man named James Sunderland whose motivation for travelling to the town of Silent Hill is a letter he received from his wife. The letter says that she is waiting for him in Silent Hill, however, in the first few minutes James states that his wife is dead having died three years before. This sets the stage for a very disturbing and surreal story that keeps you on the edge of your seat. In the last paragraph I described the monsters and the Uncanny Valley in the terms of Silent Hill 2 the monsters are a direct manifestation of James’ mental state with the exception of a monster called the Abstract Daddy. The monsters themselves are uncanny enough in their humanoid appearance but many seem to represent James’ sexual frustration. One could tie that in to the idea of the castration complex that Freud mentions on page 424 of The Uncanny. Mary’s illness left her deteriorated and James did not find her desirable it also left her irritable and she was cruel to James. It left him feeling sexually frustrated and emasculated this actually manifested as one of the most popular monsters in the series known as Pyramid Head. This monster is shown assaulting the other monsters who are coded as female. This is something distinct only to James and one doesn’t learn the true …show more content…
This isn’t the only secret that was meant to stay hidden in the game. The letter that James received was from his wife but it was written long before her death. In fact, the letter was her apologizing to James for how she treated him. You only find this after the end of the game, but before this James finds a video tape. This tape shows that James murdered Mary while she was asleep. James’ purpose for being in Silent Hill was punishment for the murder of his wife. One of the endings hints at the game being purgatory after James drowned himself in Toluca Lake (the name of the lake in Silent Hill), but that is pure speculation. James obviously would want this hidden from the authorities, but the game hints that James repressed what he did to Mary. Unheimlich applies heavily to this game through the mysteries surrounding both James and
The game itself borrows heavily from the movie Jacob’s Ladder especially in framing and camera angles. The main character of the game is a man named James Sunderland whose motivation for travelling to the town of Silent Hill is a letter he received from his wife. The letter says that she is waiting for him in Silent Hill, however, in the first few minutes James states that his wife is dead having died three years before. This sets the stage for a very disturbing and surreal story that keeps you on the edge of your seat. In the last paragraph I described the monsters and the Uncanny Valley in the terms of Silent Hill 2 the monsters are a direct manifestation of James’ mental state with the exception of a monster called the Abstract Daddy. The monsters themselves are uncanny enough in their humanoid appearance but many seem to represent James’ sexual frustration. One could tie that in to the idea of the castration complex that Freud mentions on page 424 of The Uncanny. Mary’s illness left her deteriorated and James did not find her desirable it also left her irritable and she was cruel to James. It left him feeling sexually frustrated and emasculated this actually manifested as one of the most popular monsters in the series known as Pyramid Head. This monster is shown assaulting the other monsters who are coded as female. This is something distinct only to James and one doesn’t learn the true …show more content…
This isn’t the only secret that was meant to stay hidden in the game. The letter that James received was from his wife but it was written long before her death. In fact, the letter was her apologizing to James for how she treated him. You only find this after the end of the game, but before this James finds a video tape. This tape shows that James murdered Mary while she was asleep. James’ purpose for being in Silent Hill was punishment for the murder of his wife. One of the endings hints at the game being purgatory after James drowned himself in Toluca Lake (the name of the lake in Silent Hill), but that is pure speculation. James obviously would want this hidden from the authorities, but the game hints that James repressed what he did to Mary. Unheimlich applies heavily to this game through the mysteries surrounding both James and