Comparative Analysis of ‘Fish Stories’ and ‘Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain’

Both “Fish Stories” by Janika Oza and “Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” by Jamil Jan Kochai depict a tale combining trauma/mortality/family relationships. The mother in “Fish Stories” is shown grieving for her dead son and begins to hallucinate him being alive.

However, Jamil Jan Kochai presents the protagonist of “Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” as seeing his deceased uncle in the video game he bought rather than experiencing hallucinations of him. The recurring theme of death shows how the experience of losing a loved one may leave one feeling disconnected from reality and with an unending sense of loss. Due to societal and familial bonds, death is considered tragic and unpleasant in individuals. Losing a loved one may result in a break from reality as well as the severing of past ties. In both cases, members of the family are left for independent survival and with conflicting emotions to deal with.

In Janika Oza’s work, in her narrative “Fish Stories,” a grieving mother who lost a son to a thunderstorm encounters her son. The writer’s use of different emotions throughout the story enables the reader to understand more about her son’s eerie memories. Whilst the mother laments the loss of her deceased son, the daughter does not share her belief that he is still alive. The narrator uses figurative language to convey a variety of death links throughout the novel. Near the end of the story, the metaphorical language symbol is utilized, the meal that the narrator’s

mother prepared is overlooked, and “in the morning we had found bugs feasting on the corn, an upturned fly floating in the orange grease, its belly swollen, glutted” (Oza). An upside-down fly floating in the soup is used as the quotation’s symbol and stands in for the narrator’s sibling drowning. The solemn usage of the sign emphasizes the terrible demise of the brother and the mother’s devastated thoughts after his departure. When the mother tells her daughter, “He also had to swim so far to get here” (Oza), the author employs sarcasm to imply that she thinks her brother must have gone home due to the storm.“He can’t swim, I said” (Oza), the daughter argues that her brother cannot swim and “had drowned when we first came to this country” (Oza). This remark is an example of irony despite the mother’s insistence that he has learned to swim to return home.

The ties between the surviving family members start to fray in “Fish Stories” after the death of the brother. Hallucinations and maybe even a mental breakdown set in as the mother grieves, leading her to believe that her own son has come home. The daughter starts to refute the idea that he is back at home. She starts to enumerate the characteristics of the boy she once knew as she pushes the memory of him when she remembers “glasses round and thick, framing eyes whose lashes I never stopped envying, a checkered shirt or perhaps his Manchester United polo, a missing canine that had never grown in” (Oza). The daughter tries to deny any mention that her mother makes of her brother being back home because she doesn’t want to believe that he is truly home. The mothers desire and anguish manifest in front of her due to their intensity. Although the daughter in the novel has a totally different perspective on the world, she chooses to accept rather than challenge her mother’s perception of reality, which can be seen as a form of love.

However, when the mother tells her daughter that he is home she disagrees with the mother’s assertion that he is back home because “before they could walk, burbling mounds of fat and feathery hair dropped into communal swimming pools like coins, careless wishes tossed by believing parents” (Oza). The mother holds on to the belief that her son is still alive, despite the daughter’s denials. She is being plagued by the memories of her son because she continues to hold out hope that he is still alive. Her grief is so intense that it gives the impression that he actually walked through the door.

Similar to how “Fish Stories” addresses the subject of trauma, the short story “Playing Metal Gear Solid: Phantom Pain” shows how hallucinations and mortality relate in a manner similar to how Zoya utilizes video games to escape from reality. Additionally, it portrays the story of Watak, the father’s sibling who perishes under Soviet rule. To demonstrate how a video game may be alienating in the right manner, the narrator delivers the narrative in the second person. When “you close the door and start up MF Doom on your portable speaker,” (Kochai) the figurative language symbol is utilized. Because it embodies the narrator’s rejection of his own culture, this phrase serves as an example of the symbol. He tries to block off thoughts of his family so that he may focus only on the game. He attempts to adopt an American way of life, hiding his own ethnicity behind video games and marijuana. The narrator departs from his father in the backyard to play Metal Gear Rising, but while he does so he gets so disoriented in it that his family members begin to approach him one by one. The irony is shown when he ignores the hammering and remarks, “You shout that you are sick, yet the sound that comes out of your lips is not your own,” as his brother approaches to get him. He is not ill, but he would prefer some quiet time to play his game. He’s so preoccupied with his game that he continues to break his bond with his family.

Furthermore, Kochai takes a different approach to family connections in “Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain,” isolating himself from both his family and the outside world. As he continues on playing the video game he begins to perceive the characters in the game as his father when, “for so long that you’ve become oddly immune to the self-loathing you felt when you were first massacring wave after wave of militant fighters who looked just like your father” (Kochai). As he plays the game, reality and the virtual world merge together, and he recognizes locations and family inside the game. When the narrator refers to his father as “a dark, sturdy man” (Kochai) it is clear that he wishes to avoid any type of interaction with his family. He further explains that he is “so unlike you that, as a child, you were sure that one day Hagrid would come to your door and inform you of your status as a Mudblood, and then your true life-the life without the weight of your father’s history, pain, guilt, hopelessness, judgment, and shame-would begin,” (Kochai) he says, making a reference to a literary method. Hagrid from Harry Potter is mentioned by the narrator because, much like in the book, Hagrid arrives to inform Harry that he is a wizard and that the Dudley’s have been lying to him about his parents. The narrator wants to live a life away from his family and free of Afghan culture. While playing the game, the narrator claims that his father never murdered anyone while he was a guerrilla warrior “but there is something in the act of slaughtering these Soviet N.P.C.s that makes you feel connected to him and his history of warfare.” It’s ironic that he wants to connect with his father in the video game but not in real life. The burden of guilt, shame of difference, challenging language obstacles, and other forms of alienation are common among refugee children who desire to heal ties with their parents. Because his father has gone through such immense loss and indescribable suffering, the narrator of this book, who has enjoyed a relatively protected existence, may be scared by his father’s experience in this story. The narrator then understands that he needs to experience pain with his father in some manner in order to relate to him.

The relationships within the family and death have always influenced the family member who is mourning the loss of a loved one. Familial ties are crucial because they foster, bolster, and repair ties that enable a family to maintain positive bonds with one another. Once the tie is severed by death, it affects how the surviving family members perceive reality and deal with their own emotions. In both stories, the cause of death has such an effect on the characters that their reality begins to shift and they begin to perceive the deceased. Each of the story’s narrators deals differently with the loss of a family member. The mother of the deceased son in “Fish Stories” begins to hallucinate when he appears to her while she is still grieving the loss of a loved one. “Playing Phantom Pain from Metal Gear Solid V”, Zoya is adamant about escaping reality, but he keeps playing the game that makes him think about his family and their homeland.

Written by Sonia Vandari

Works Cited

Oza, Janika. “Fish Stories: Journal.” The Kenyon Review, https://kenyonreview.org/journal/janfeb-2021/selections/janika-oza/.

KOCHAI, JAMIL JAN. “Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.” New Yorker, vol. 95, no. 43, Jan. 2020, pp. 54–57. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=140908526&site=ehost-live.

Hamlet: A Shakespeare’s Tragedy

In William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, the main character Hamlet mourns the death of his father while pretending to be insane, considers life and death, and seeks vengeance. McGinn explains why Hamlet is a tough character to grasp using philosophical themes from Shakespeare’s Philosophy. Hamlet is grappling with his new status as Prince of Denmark, as well as the expectations that come with the title. He begins to question his identity and the roles he has taken on as the play progresses. According to McGinn, “we construct ourselves as having a particular identity by imagining and enacting certain roles,” (McGuinn 46), thus Hamlet has constructed himself in a play and can only act when he occupies a role. I agree with McGinn that Hamlet is unaware of his true identity and is constantly playing a role in order to gain one.

Although McGinn proves points as to why Hamlet is a difficult character to understand I would also have to disagree with his claim.

The question of whether Hamlet is acting the part of a madman or if he is indeed mentally ill, is a well-known point of contention. According to McGinn, Hamlet fabricates himself to play a role since he is unaware of his genuine role. McGinn states that “…Hamlet is facing the problem of the nothingness of the self, and his way out of this nothingness is through an essentially theatrical construction of the self” (McGinn 45). In his theatrical act, Hamlet makes an effort to create a sense of self in the face of this emptiness. He assumes a variety of

personas during the play, from the crazy to the vengeful hero, in order to control people around him and realize his objectives. Hamlet’s deceased father begs him to seek retribution, and he responds, “As I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on” (Shakespeare 1.5.170-171). Since Hamlet has no idea who he is, he plays the part of a lunatic to make Claudius believe he is harmless and unable to exact retribution for the death of his father. Shakespeare’s idea of playing a character in one’s own life is important to Hamlet because it gives him a way to hide his true motivations and mask his own emotions. By taking on an “antic disposition,” Hamlet can protect himself from the dangerous situation he is in and potentially convince Claudius to admit to the murder of Hamlet’s father.

Hamlet is unsure of how he feels. McGinn states “Think of the adolescent, unsure of the kind of person he or she wants to be: the process of acquiring an identity consists in playing a role, and hence involves theatrical skills.” (McGinn 47). Hamlet is conflicted with how he feels and how he is supposed to feel which leads him to obsess with playing a role. In both his concern with the “play within the play” and his portrayal of insanity, Hamlet is the ideal performer.

Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy is as much a suicidal man’s reflections as it is an analysis of whether one might rebel against their scripted part on life’s stage. Should he assassinate the man who murdered his father? However, after being poisoned fatally, Hamlet is more convinced than ever that there is a divine providence that governs man’s existence and that events occur as they should when he states “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends” (Shakespeare 5.2.10) and fulfills his “job” by killing Claudius.

In Hamlet, in order to avenge his uncle, who has taken the kingdom and married his mother, Hamlet is depicted as an actor who is attempting to learn the truth about the death of his father. Although Hamlet performs a play within a play in an effort to uncover his uncle’s guilt,

this does not imply that he is “acting” in the sense of taking on a part. Instead Hamlet is using the play as a means of revealing his uncle’s duplicity and proving his own suspicions regarding the demise of his father. He is portrayed as a severely tormented individual who battles his own feelings of uncertainty, hesitation, and misery throughout the entire play. He is not merely acting; rather, he is debating the nuances of his predicament and seeking to act in accordance with his moral convictions. In short, while Hamlet does utilize acting as a tool in his pursuit for retribution, he is not simply “acting” in the way that an actor would on a stage. Instead, he is a nuanced person who fights for justice and the truth.

McGinn states “…then we get Hamlet’s predicament: a mixture of grief and brilliance leading to confusion and inaction.” (McGinn 51).Within the play, Hamlet’s predicament is a mix of sadness and brilliance which results in bewilderment and immobility in the play, Hamlet is unable to deal with his loss after the passing of his father because of his intense grief. He is also a very analytical and clever guy, which leads him to question and examine everything around him. Hamlet eventually becomes confused and immobile due to his own thoughts and feelings as a result of this tragic and brilliant combination. He struggles between the need for vengeance and the uncertainty of what to do. He eventually grows more and more hesitant and unsure, which ultimately brings him to ruin.

Throughout the play, Hamlet engages in different sorts of performance and pretense, from his pretended madness to his play within a play aimed to prove his stepfather’s guilt. Hamlet’s performances show his incapacity to make a decision and his retreat into a theatrical persona.

There are various ways to understand Hamlet’s actions and motivations. However, ultimately each reader must come to their own conclusions. While some contend that Hamlet uses his performances to subtly control the other characters, others may believe that he uses them to work

through his own feelings and aspirations. In the end, there is no one right answer because of the depth of Hamlet’s character and the play’s themes.

Written by Sonia Vandari

Works Cited

McGinn, Colin. Shakespeare’s Philosophy: Discovering the Meaning Behind The Plays, HarperCollins, New York, 2006, pp. 47–59.

William Shakespeare. Hamlet. The Norton Introduction to Literature, edited by Kelly J. Mays, Portable 13th Edition., W. W. Norton, 2022, pp. 906-1005.