independent-study stories
Jamil Jan Kochai, “playing metal gear solid V_ The phantom pain”
Technical aspects
Narration
Second person pov
- Second person narrative: addresses the reader directly as ‘you’, pulling
them into the protagonist’s perspective
- The entire story is written in the second person
o ‘you leave the bike behind the trash cans at the side of the house’
o Effect: creates immediacy since you’re not just observing but living it
o Also emphasizes alienation: by addressing the self as ‘you’, the
narrator distances themselves from their own pain
o Blurring of identity
Structure
- Nonlinear, fragmented
- Begins as a realistic story: buying a game
- Then the gameplay as a narrative method begins
- Eventually the two get blurred together until the reader can’t separate
fiction, memory and trauma
o This mirrors how trauma factures time and perception
o The mission-based logic of video games gives a false sense of
control over an uncontrollable past
Style
- Syntax = long
- a mind overwhelmed by emotion, memory, and the game’s intensity
o ‘you’ve been using your taco bell paychecks to help your pops,
who’s been out of work since you were ten, and who makes you feel
unbearably guilty about spending money’
o This mimics mental overload (trauma, guilt)
o Creates a lyrical, oral storytelling rhythm
Tone
- Begins with excited gamer energy but quickly turns into something else
that ends in aching darkness
1
, o ‘you hold him, his body still strong and well, his heart unbroken, and
you set him down gently on the clay so that the sky does not
swallow him’
o The emotional tone mirrors a descent into memory, grief, and the
desire to protect one’s family across time
Themes
The theme of trauma
The narrator relives generational trauma through the immersive nature of the
game
- Textual evidence: page 6: ‘an overwhelming sese of déjà vu’ indicates
that the game triggers real and personal memories, as much so as that the
narrator gets the feeling of déjà vu
- ‘you spot Watak, your father’s sixteen-year-old brother, whom you
recognize only because his picture hangs on the wall’ the narrator never
knew this brother in real life, so it’s interesting that he can recognize this
person in a game because of one picture ; this also indicates that the game
is once again triggering memory and even grief
Spatial setting
Constant shift between the real world (suburban California) and the virtual
world (the game’s version of 1970s Afghanistan)
The two spaces bleed into each other and the narrator can’t distinguish them
anymore
- ‘just the way you remember from all those years ago, when you visited
Kabul as a child” the game’s virtual environment mirrors his actual
childhood memories
- ‘your reflection becomes visible on the screen of the television … as if the
figures in the image were journeying inside of you … ‘ spatial collapse:
the fictional space (game) enters his emotional interiority (self)
The house (California home): claustrophobic and emotionally charged
- The house is both a refuge and a prison
o “lock the door and turn up MF doom on your portable speaker to
ward off mothers, fathers” he tries to block out his family and find
freedom through the game
o “you lug your dresser in front of it as a barricade” the bedroom
becomes a war zone, echoing the battle within and outside the
game
2
,for the exam question (2): how spatial setting enhances a theme of choice
(trauma)
The story enhances the theme of trauma by externalizing psychological pain into
physical and digital landscapes; the spaces the narrator moves through are not just
background, they are extensions of memory, emotion, and inherited suffering
the California home as a site of pain
- the narrator’s house in the US is cramped, chaotic, and emotionally
charged, symbolizing how trauma lingers and festers even far from the
original source (Afghanistan)
o ‘you lug your dresser in front of it as a barricade’, ‘your room is a
mess and smells like ass’ these domestic spaces feel like
bunkers, revealing how the narrator is constantly on the defensive,
even at home. The clutter and confinement reflect his unprocessed
trauma and family tensions.
Afghanistan (the game’s setting) as a virtual battlefield of memory
- The trauma is directly mapped onto geography, since the in-game version
of Afghanistan is hyperreal and eerily familiar, a digital echo of the
narrator’s childhood memories and his father’s war stories
o ‘you come upon the house where your father used to reside’, ‘you
head south … until you reach Wagh Jan … just the way you
remember it’ this recreation forces the narrator to relive
generational trauma, literally awakening through the villages where
his father fought and suffered ; the open-world game becomes a
minefield of memory, collapsing time and space into a traumatic loop
Mother base and the helicopter extraction zone
- The desire to extract his family from the war-torn village is metaphorical: he
wants to pull them out of the past, out of trauma, into safety, but the
mission fails
o ‘fly them back to your offshore platform: mother base’ , ‘your horse is
slaughtered … your pilot is struck … the helicopter falls’ these
imagined “safe” spaces are illusions ; the collapse of the helicopter
reflects the inevitability of trauma, and even the fantasy world denies
him the ability to truly save or heal
The cave in the mountains: trauma turned inward
- The final space (the dark cave) represents the internalization of
generational trauma
o ‘you trudge deeper into the darkness … your reflection becomes
visible on the screen’ the setting becomes metaphorical: the
narrator is literally going deeper into himself, into the recesses of
pain and memory. The trauma doesn’t just happen IN space, it
BECOMES the space
3
, in this story, trauma isn’t just felt, but it is mapped onto every space the narrator
inhabits
exam question (1): how narration enhances the theme of trauma
the second-person narration is deeply intertwined with the theme of trauma ; the use
of ‘you’ is not just a stylistic choice, but a powerful tool that mirrors how trauma
affects memory, identity, and self-perception
second-person as dissociation
- trauma often leads to dissociation (a psychological distancing from the
self); and by writing in the second person, Kochai mirrors this psychological
split
o ‘you tell him you do have to study, which isn’t technically a lie’, ‘your
father … who, at this time, is around the same age that you are now’
the narrator can’t refer to himself as ‘I’ because it’s too close and
too painful. Speaking as ‘you’ allows him to observe himself from a
distance, the way someone might mentally check out during trauma
Narration as self-interrogation and guilt
- The second person often reads like an internal monologue or a self-
accusation, which mirrors the guilt and helplessness that trauma survivors
often carry
o ‘you shout that you are sick, but the voice that comes out of your
mouth is not your own’ , ‘you notice that your room is a mess … and
you’ve become so accustomed to its smell’ these moments
sound like a mind trying to make sense of itself, observing its own
dysfunction from the outside with shame and detachment
It becomes your trauma too
- By placing the reader in the role of ‘you’, Kochai universalizes the trauma.
It’s not just the narrator’s burden, it becomes yours too, echoing how
trauma can feel collective, especially in immigrant or war-torn families
o ‘you hold him … his body still strong and well, his heart unbroken’,
‘you trudge deeper into the darkness of the cave’ you are made
to feel the loss, the helplessness and the fantasy of trying to fix the
unfixable
Narrative loops = trauma loops
- The second person narration mimics the repetitive thought cycles of PTSD
constantly reliving the same moments, conversations, choices
o ‘return to the game’, ‘ignore the knock’ these commands read like
coping mechanisms, like the voice in your head telling you how to
stay numb, to avoid reality, and how to relive the past in a controlled
space
4
Jamil Jan Kochai, “playing metal gear solid V_ The phantom pain”
Technical aspects
Narration
Second person pov
- Second person narrative: addresses the reader directly as ‘you’, pulling
them into the protagonist’s perspective
- The entire story is written in the second person
o ‘you leave the bike behind the trash cans at the side of the house’
o Effect: creates immediacy since you’re not just observing but living it
o Also emphasizes alienation: by addressing the self as ‘you’, the
narrator distances themselves from their own pain
o Blurring of identity
Structure
- Nonlinear, fragmented
- Begins as a realistic story: buying a game
- Then the gameplay as a narrative method begins
- Eventually the two get blurred together until the reader can’t separate
fiction, memory and trauma
o This mirrors how trauma factures time and perception
o The mission-based logic of video games gives a false sense of
control over an uncontrollable past
Style
- Syntax = long
- a mind overwhelmed by emotion, memory, and the game’s intensity
o ‘you’ve been using your taco bell paychecks to help your pops,
who’s been out of work since you were ten, and who makes you feel
unbearably guilty about spending money’
o This mimics mental overload (trauma, guilt)
o Creates a lyrical, oral storytelling rhythm
Tone
- Begins with excited gamer energy but quickly turns into something else
that ends in aching darkness
1
, o ‘you hold him, his body still strong and well, his heart unbroken, and
you set him down gently on the clay so that the sky does not
swallow him’
o The emotional tone mirrors a descent into memory, grief, and the
desire to protect one’s family across time
Themes
The theme of trauma
The narrator relives generational trauma through the immersive nature of the
game
- Textual evidence: page 6: ‘an overwhelming sese of déjà vu’ indicates
that the game triggers real and personal memories, as much so as that the
narrator gets the feeling of déjà vu
- ‘you spot Watak, your father’s sixteen-year-old brother, whom you
recognize only because his picture hangs on the wall’ the narrator never
knew this brother in real life, so it’s interesting that he can recognize this
person in a game because of one picture ; this also indicates that the game
is once again triggering memory and even grief
Spatial setting
Constant shift between the real world (suburban California) and the virtual
world (the game’s version of 1970s Afghanistan)
The two spaces bleed into each other and the narrator can’t distinguish them
anymore
- ‘just the way you remember from all those years ago, when you visited
Kabul as a child” the game’s virtual environment mirrors his actual
childhood memories
- ‘your reflection becomes visible on the screen of the television … as if the
figures in the image were journeying inside of you … ‘ spatial collapse:
the fictional space (game) enters his emotional interiority (self)
The house (California home): claustrophobic and emotionally charged
- The house is both a refuge and a prison
o “lock the door and turn up MF doom on your portable speaker to
ward off mothers, fathers” he tries to block out his family and find
freedom through the game
o “you lug your dresser in front of it as a barricade” the bedroom
becomes a war zone, echoing the battle within and outside the
game
2
,for the exam question (2): how spatial setting enhances a theme of choice
(trauma)
The story enhances the theme of trauma by externalizing psychological pain into
physical and digital landscapes; the spaces the narrator moves through are not just
background, they are extensions of memory, emotion, and inherited suffering
the California home as a site of pain
- the narrator’s house in the US is cramped, chaotic, and emotionally
charged, symbolizing how trauma lingers and festers even far from the
original source (Afghanistan)
o ‘you lug your dresser in front of it as a barricade’, ‘your room is a
mess and smells like ass’ these domestic spaces feel like
bunkers, revealing how the narrator is constantly on the defensive,
even at home. The clutter and confinement reflect his unprocessed
trauma and family tensions.
Afghanistan (the game’s setting) as a virtual battlefield of memory
- The trauma is directly mapped onto geography, since the in-game version
of Afghanistan is hyperreal and eerily familiar, a digital echo of the
narrator’s childhood memories and his father’s war stories
o ‘you come upon the house where your father used to reside’, ‘you
head south … until you reach Wagh Jan … just the way you
remember it’ this recreation forces the narrator to relive
generational trauma, literally awakening through the villages where
his father fought and suffered ; the open-world game becomes a
minefield of memory, collapsing time and space into a traumatic loop
Mother base and the helicopter extraction zone
- The desire to extract his family from the war-torn village is metaphorical: he
wants to pull them out of the past, out of trauma, into safety, but the
mission fails
o ‘fly them back to your offshore platform: mother base’ , ‘your horse is
slaughtered … your pilot is struck … the helicopter falls’ these
imagined “safe” spaces are illusions ; the collapse of the helicopter
reflects the inevitability of trauma, and even the fantasy world denies
him the ability to truly save or heal
The cave in the mountains: trauma turned inward
- The final space (the dark cave) represents the internalization of
generational trauma
o ‘you trudge deeper into the darkness … your reflection becomes
visible on the screen’ the setting becomes metaphorical: the
narrator is literally going deeper into himself, into the recesses of
pain and memory. The trauma doesn’t just happen IN space, it
BECOMES the space
3
, in this story, trauma isn’t just felt, but it is mapped onto every space the narrator
inhabits
exam question (1): how narration enhances the theme of trauma
the second-person narration is deeply intertwined with the theme of trauma ; the use
of ‘you’ is not just a stylistic choice, but a powerful tool that mirrors how trauma
affects memory, identity, and self-perception
second-person as dissociation
- trauma often leads to dissociation (a psychological distancing from the
self); and by writing in the second person, Kochai mirrors this psychological
split
o ‘you tell him you do have to study, which isn’t technically a lie’, ‘your
father … who, at this time, is around the same age that you are now’
the narrator can’t refer to himself as ‘I’ because it’s too close and
too painful. Speaking as ‘you’ allows him to observe himself from a
distance, the way someone might mentally check out during trauma
Narration as self-interrogation and guilt
- The second person often reads like an internal monologue or a self-
accusation, which mirrors the guilt and helplessness that trauma survivors
often carry
o ‘you shout that you are sick, but the voice that comes out of your
mouth is not your own’ , ‘you notice that your room is a mess … and
you’ve become so accustomed to its smell’ these moments
sound like a mind trying to make sense of itself, observing its own
dysfunction from the outside with shame and detachment
It becomes your trauma too
- By placing the reader in the role of ‘you’, Kochai universalizes the trauma.
It’s not just the narrator’s burden, it becomes yours too, echoing how
trauma can feel collective, especially in immigrant or war-torn families
o ‘you hold him … his body still strong and well, his heart unbroken’,
‘you trudge deeper into the darkness of the cave’ you are made
to feel the loss, the helplessness and the fantasy of trying to fix the
unfixable
Narrative loops = trauma loops
- The second person narration mimics the repetitive thought cycles of PTSD
constantly reliving the same moments, conversations, choices
o ‘return to the game’, ‘ignore the knock’ these commands read like
coping mechanisms, like the voice in your head telling you how to
stay numb, to avoid reality, and how to relive the past in a controlled
space
4
