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Dear esther analysis
Dear esther analysis










dear esther analysis

In my dreams, it forms into a per­fect rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Lot’s wife, head over her shoul­der, star­ing along the motor­way at the approach­ing traf­fic, in a vac­u­um of fatal­is­tic calm.ĭear Esther. My neck aches from star­ing up at the aer­i­al it mir­rors the dull throb in my gut where I am sure I have begun to form anoth­er stone. All suf­fer­ing, phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal, becomes one, becomes the over­whelm­ing ques­tion the nar­ra­tor pur­sues. This theme is rein­forced as the nar­ra­tor begins to draw con­nec­tions between the suf­fer­ing of his own body from the kid­ney stones, the island, and the car crash. It had an air of uneasy per­ma­nence to it, like all the other build­ings here ero­sion seems to have evad­ed it com­plete­ly.” The aer­i­al has a kind of eter­nal qual­i­ty about it that hints that what­ev­er it has to do with the nar­ra­tor’s suf­fer­ing, it can­not be his alone.

dear esther analysis

“I was expect­ing just the aer­i­al and a trans­mit­ter stashed in a weath­er­proof box some­where on the mount. It’s also impor­tant to note that while the nar­ra­tor spec­u­lates that per­haps the island was cre­at­ed by the cat­a­stro­phe that killed Esther, he also notes that the aer­i­al is strange­ly per­ma­nent. The mean­ing­ful­ness of seem­ing­ly ran­dom events is a theme in Dear Esther, even in the game­play struc­ture itself, which makes ran­dom changes each time that it’s played.

dear esther analysis

It rep­re­sents the cul­mi­na­tion of his search. It’s par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant that its posi­tion seems so inten­tion­al to the Narrator, as if it’s some­thing he must approach and scale. The mount and the bea­con come up again and again. I am drawn by the aer­i­al and the cliff edge: there is some form of rebirth wait­ing for me there.”

dear esther analysis

Was this island formed dur­ing the moment of impact when we were torn loose from our moor­ings and the seat­belts cut motor­way lanes into our chests and shoul­ders, did it first break sur­face then? I find myself eas­i­ly slip­ping into the delu­sion­al state of ascrib­ing pur­pose, delib­er­ate motive to every­thing here. The mount is clear­ly the focal point of this land­scape it almost appears so well placed as to be arti­fi­cial. To under­stand the island, for him, is to under­stand the death of his wife. Somehow, he believes that this lone­ly place can offer him solace and mean­ing in the face of the loss of Esther. The island and the Narrator are close­ly relat­ed.

Dear esther analysis full#

I return each time leav­ing fresh mark­ers that I hope, in the full glare of my hope­less­ness, will have blos­somed into fresh insight in the inter­im.” No mat­ter how hard I cor­re­late, it remains a sin­gu­lar­i­ty, an alpha point in my life that refus­es all hypoth­e­sis. Somewhere, between the lon­gi­tude and lat­i­tude a split opened up and it beached remote­ly here. I some­times feel as if I’ve given birth to this island. The nar­ra­tive in Dear Esther is famous­ly opaque, but hope­ful­ly this com­men­tary on the dia­logue and events with­in the game will help to flesh out the under­ly­ing themes of the work, if not the spe­cif­ic nar­ra­tive details.ĭear Esther. Dear Esther res­olute­ly, and I think inten­tion­al­ly, resists any kind of com­plete analy­sis, but over the months since I first played and replayed the game, a kind of shape has been form­ing in my mind, one that grows and builds upon itself each time I go through it.












Dear esther analysis