Before I write this I must let everyone know for those who haven\u2019t played Gone Home do so before reading this. It\u2019s a powerful story and one that everyone should experience for themselves. Also that this response will have spoilers for the game, since I am writing a response to it. Also since this is specifically for a class I may actually write a more personal response to it later.
\nCompare and contrast the gender roles of Sam, Lonnie, and Katie. What symbols, signs, and other evidence about the house help inform your opinions?
\nHow do these relate to conceptions of \u201cgirl play\u201d and \u201cboy play\u201d as described in Jenkins\u2019s \u201cComplete Freedom of Movement\u201d essay?<\/p>\n
(Unfortunately due to the way I copied the blog the summary of the game wasn’t copied).<\/p>\n
Gone Home is a game of discovery, one where you find yourself home after a year and everyone else gone. The discovery is more of family history though and not one of great earth shattering changes. This game would probably be considered a \u201cgirl play\u201d game according to Jenkin\u2019s \u201cComplete Freedom of Movement\u201d article from previous responses. It is a game where there is no fighting, it\u2019s exploring the home, and is all about mysteries, secrets, and the hidden. But do these characters fit into the typical \u201cboy play\u201d\/\u201dgirl play\u201d roles? If I had to set them into roles I would say it would fit thusly; Katie would fit the \u201cgirl play\u201d model, Lonnie would fit the \u201cboy play\u201d model, and Sam would fit somewhere inbetween.<\/p>\n
Katie is definitely the \u201cgirl play\u201d model as fits into Jenkin\u2019s description. \u201cGirl space is a space of secrets and romance, a place of one\u2019s own in a world that offers you far too little room to explore.\u201d In other word Jenkin\u2019s believes that girl space is a place of secrets within the home, one which we know from hidden clues Katie loves to dig up. In fact it makes sense that Katie is the one who is exploring the home to find out what has happened, because she is one of exploration. But she just got home from a trip through Europe, you may say, yes very true something that seems like a \u201cboy play\u201d exploration but in fact I feel it\u2019s more to the \u201cplay town\u201d aspect of Jenkin\u2019s \u201cgirl play\u201d model. Meaning that Katie is really going out to find the secrets of Europe in safe tourist environments, whereas a \u201cboy play\u201d trip would be backpacking through the country, hitchhiking through the country side seeing small cities, having an adventure. As you see these are both forms of exploration but one has a lot more danger to it then traveling to tourist spots.<\/p>\n
Since we explored some of the \u201cgirl play\u201d why don\u2019t we hit on the \u201cboy play\u201d. Even though Lonnie is a girl I think she fits into the \u201cboy play\u201d model. Let\u2019s get some background for her. She lives with her father, who himself went into the military, and helps him rebuild bikes. She\u2019s a punk girl, one that defies authority, who breaks rules. In fact I believe the only reason she is treated differently by school and others is because she is a girl playing in the boys world. \u201cThe space of the boy book is the space of adventure, risk-taking danger, of a wild and untamed nature that one must master if one is to survive\u201d Jenkin\u2019s point is that boys,in addition to \u201cboy play\u201d, are wild and dangerous, and needs to be tamed and this can be seen in Lonnie because of her going into the military like her father, to tame her wild side, even as she goes on to wild and adventurous, while in the military, to places like the jungles of Mexico.
\nSam is the one inbetween these two roles I feel. She is coming to terms with herself while at the same time trying to become more adventurous. She is stuck in a world where she is basically a girl but when she writes she writes of the world of a basically \u201cboy play\u201d. She always wrote herself as the hero in her pirate tales, the dangerous, adventurous type, with her First Mate who actually transformed in her stories from a boy to a girl, which in the game world meant going from old male friend to new girlfriend. Furthermore she was trapped in the girl play world where she was stuck at home and discovered all the secrets of the house, the hidden panels, hidden passage ways and kept a lot of secrets. In the end I think she chose the world of \u201cboy play\u201d because of the running away from home rather than staying, but if you continue to look at it she does \u201csacrifice their private in order to make room for others\u2019 needs\u201d Jenkin\u2019s is insisting that girls in becoming women sacrifice their privacy for others, just like Sam does form Katie in providing all these clues throughout the house. SO maybe she is what Jenkin\u2019s always wanted with his \u201cNeutral Play Space\u201d because \u201cgirls need to experience the \u2018complete freedom of movement\u2019 promised by the boys games\u201d, his point is that in running away Sam not only has had the closed \u201cgirl play\u201d but is experiencing the open \u201cboys play\u201d as well.<\/p>\n
In the end \u201cboy play\u201d and \u201cgirl play\u201d plays a lot into this game and shows that you don\u2019t have to be a girl to enjoy a game that has no action and is all about exploration, moreover you don\u2019t have to fit into the gender roles that the world wants to place you into.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Before I write this I must let everyone know for those who haven\u2019t played Gone Home do so before reading this. It\u2019s a powerful story and one that everyone should experience for themselves. Also that this response will have spoilers for the game, since I am writing a response to it. Also since this is … Continue reading