War Game: A Panoptical Narrative of Terror

Main Article Content

Ana Ashraf

Abstract

  In modern thought, (if not in fact) Nothing is that doesn’t act, So that is reckoned wisdom which Describes the scratch but not the itch. [1]   And hence is born a new form of war narrative namely war games_ a genre that heightens the action but not the motif, refutes historically of an event and politicizes the general consciousness, triggers hatred for the ‘other’ where this ‘other’ is a complete stranger for the player’s consciousness and finally a medium that not just challenges one’s sense of reality but also replaces it with desired panoptical tautology. This research article focuses on the complexity of war video games and studies them as a new and subtle visual medium of war narrative. It also proposes that a medium that infiltrates the most potent group of society (youth), that palters the sense of reality, that defines war in new terms needs much more critical scrutiny than it presently receives. For this purpose, three of the most famous and latest war games (Delta Force, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor) are analysed in pithy detail. Where most of the criticism on video games is based on their form or structure, this article attempts at exposing the significance and complex inter-relatedness of content and form. It is strongly implied here that the medium of video games cannot be thoroughly understood unless their criticism involves an objective analysis of the content and form. i. Marshall Mcluhan, Understanding Media: The Extension of Man (London: Routledge, 2001) 10.

Article Details

Section
Refereed Articles (Humanities)
Author Biography

Ana Ashraf, GC University, Lahore

Ana Ashraf, lecturer at GC University Lahore since 25th Dec, 2008 has completed her Mphil dissertation in 2011. Being the first batch who conducted research in War Literature in Pakistan, She endeavored to analyse the modern ‘irreality’ of war that not only surrounds us but deconstructs our notions of the ‘real’. Her thesis work has been published in book form under the title of Preponderance of Simulacra in Modern Times: An Analysis of American Virtual War in Afghanistan (ISBN 978-3-8465-8768-3) by international Lambert Publishing House. She is a freelance writer in Asiana Wedding Magazine on regular basis. Her areas of interest are primarily modern fiction, war literature and romantic poetry.