When people think about games, probably the first thought that appears in their minds is that they are made for entertainment. Certainly, there are games with different formats and purposes but in the end they all share the same feature; they are harmless enjoyable activities. At least, that was what I thought. I found out that not all of them apply to this characteristic. This paper will look at one in particular that, far from being harmless, seems to change the lives of its players forever; the well-known Ouija or Cup’s game. I might classify it as a “paranormal” game, since it is outside the boundaries of the regular and “normal” ones. The Ouija is a game used for having contact with spirits. It is played on a board that has written the entire alphabet on it and in the centre there is a figure similar to a triangle that is used to point to the letters. The players must put their index finger on the triangle without touching it and make a question to the “spirits.” Another adaptation is the Cup game, whose only difference is that, instead of a triangle, a cup upside down is used. Many narratives telling the misfortunes of its participants can be found on the internet and most of them (if not all) share a salient characteristic: adolescents as central characters. This similarity will be used as a starting point in the development of this paper since it might not be a curious coincidence. Young adults seem more likely to approach these types of experiences. This will be evidenced through the analysis of three stories concerning the Ouija game. Throughout the identification of certain behaviors and attitudes depicted in them, adolescents may realize and understand the complexities and dangers they are exposed to.
In the following lines, an attempt will be made to analyze and develop the shared characteristics of three narratives that tell the experiences of three different young adults with the Ouija game. These characteristics might be connected with their own behavior in real life. Taking this into consideration, this paper will explore on how adolescents behavior is depicted and reflected in three different urban myths.
The demon of the Ouija board trashed the house, White faced Ouija board ghost and Ouija board séance and our new home haunting (Ouija board tales, 2013) are stories published in a blog dedicated to experiences concerning this urban myth. The first one tells the story of sixteen-year-old Amber and her friend Dee. She brings a game she had found and “challenges” Amber to play it. The second story is told by Justin, an eight-year-old boy who is a witness of the frightening experience of his adolescent sister with this game. The third narration has a young lady and her roommates as protagonists and tells the strange events that take place in their new house when they experiment with the Ouija. Essentially, these narrations tell the story of three adolescents (and their friends) whose curiosity for the game makes them play it. Even though they have heard of grownup people telling them that they should never experience this, they do it anyway. When they start playing the Ouija, they notice that nothing happens and they continue playing until the spirits appear. Once they have made contact with the “ghosts”, they regret having done this and swear they will never do it again. These experiences portray one of the most famous and scariest of all the urban myths popularly known.
But is the Ouija game a veridical story? The website Wikipedia (accessed October, 19th 2013) provides the following definition of urban myths:
“An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true. As with all folklore and mythology, the designation suggests nothing about the story's veracity, but merely that it is in circulation, exhibits variation over time, and carries some significance that motivates the community in preserving and propagating it.”
So, urban myths are not necessarily real stories. However, they are retold so many times that usually make people think they are true. And this may be why people feel attracted to them. Nevertheless, a group appear to be more likely to experience urban myths. Adolescents in particular, seem to pay special attention to the Ouija game. It is possible that their own behaviour is reflected through the game. In order to provide a thorough explanation, it might be useful to clarify some points.
First, the term adolescence will be understood as “...a transitional stage of physical and psychological human development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to legal adulthood and whose cultural purpose is the preparation of children for adult roles...” (Wikipedia, accessed on October 20th 2013) According to this definition, adolescence is a transitional period in which the individual is no longer a child. Thus, he/she cannot be considered an adult. It is possible to state that is a difficult stage full of changes not only physical but also psychological. Second, since this period is crossed by several transformations, it is important to highlight the changes in the adolescent’s behaviour as well. These will be analyzed in connection to the three stories about experiences with the Ouija game to find out if they reflect some behaviour typical of this period.
One of the many coincidences that can be found within these urban myths is that the three of them have adolescents as central characters. But is this a coincidence? Possibly not. As stated on the same website (Idem) “During adolescence, there is an extremely high emphasis on approval of peers as a reward due to adolescents' increased self-consciousness”. Even though it is not possible to know exactly if the main characters of the stories are precisely the protagonists for this reason, it is possible to notice, as the urban myths are developed, an encouragement from peers to play the game. In order to clarify this assertion, the following extract might help:
“My best friend Dee came home. I opened the door and she had a weird board game in her hands. She greeted me and I welcomed her in. Then she said "Look at my new board game! Pretty cool uh? Let’s play!” “Seems creepy...” I said but she told not to be a chicken so we played.” [Original punctuation]
“We held a séance with a Ouija board and asked questions although I’m very against communicating with spirits because activity tends to become more frequent. But my roommates told me not to worry and we did it”
These extracts were taken from the stories The demon of the Ouija board trashed the house and Ouija board séance and our new home haunting respectively. In the first fragment, the adolescent seems doubtful about playing this “creepy game”. However, her friend Dee tells her “not to be a chicken”. As Winnicot (Marta Vega and others, 2007) suggests, a characteristic of early adolescence is the insertion within a certain group and for doing so young adults usually adopt a behavior similar to the one of their peers. Our unnamed protagonist follows this pattern; she does what her friend Dee tells her to do only because she does not want to be left aside. Doing the opposite might represent to lose respect among her group of friends. Similarly, in the second extract, it is possible to notice that this young lady follows her roommate’s advice despite her dislike about the game. Definitely, it is important for young adults to be accepted among peers and that is why the two friends end up playing the game even though the protagonist of this story does not like the idea that much.
Another characteristic of adolescence is the problem of facing authority figures. It is suggested (Idem) that during adolescence several arguments between young adults and their parents take place. These often concern minor issues of control, such as curfew, acceptable clothing, and the adolescent's right to privacy, which adolescents may have previously viewed as issues over which their parents had complete authority. Parent-adolescent disagreement also increases as friends demonstrate a greater impact on one another. Besides, new influences on the adolescent appear and these may be in opposition to parents' values. So, it might not be surprising that in the urban myths the characters do not follow the warnings their parents give:
“My sister Christina and her friend were babysitting me, but were messing with their Ouija board. My mother told them they should never play it and had thought they had gotten rid of it weeks beforehand but, to no avail.” (White faced Ouija board ghost)
“My mom came down the stairs and greeted me and Dee and went to go into the kitchen but she stopped and glared at the board and said "WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING PLAYING WITH THAT!?" I said "It is not mine its Dee's she said "DON'T PLAY IT ITS DANGEROUS" Me and Dee shrugged and waited for my mom to walk out then Dee asked "What is your name" It said N-O-M-D-E I went white and said "it spells Demon if you unscramble it" [Original punctuation] (The demon of the Ouija board trashed the house)
Despite Christina’s mother warning, the young lady, far from obeying her mother, does exactly the opposite. Besides, her friend encourages Christina keeping the game and playing it later. Dee’s behaviour is similar. She does not pay attention to her mother’s advice and waits till she leaves the room so that they can continue with the game. In these stories, there is a clear reflection of this particular behaviour that young adults have in real life. As adolescents have a closer relationship with their peers, they are more likely to accept their friend’s advice rather than their parents. Christina’s and Dee’s attitudes are proof of this.
Having explored the conflictive relationship adolescents have with authority, it might be interesting to focus on the risky behaviour they manifest and that many times puts them in danger. If the following extract from one of the stories is analyzed, it may be evident that the adolescent put herself in a risky situation despite the warning of her aunt. Even though the Ouija game has proved to be dangerous and with unpleasant consequences for its players, the protagonist decides to go through the experience:
“My aunt told me a similar story that happened to her. To keep it short she was messing with the Ouija board as a teenager with a friend and they saw the white face in a window. She claims to have seen it for many years before finally getting baptized before her wedding and she never saw it again.” (White faced Ouija board ghost)
And why this is so? The behavioural decision-making theory proposes that adolescents and adults both weigh the potential rewards and consequences of an action. However, research has shown that adolescents seem to give more weight to rewards, particularly social rewards, than do adults (Wikipedia, 2013). This assertion is strongly connected with the idea of acceptance within a certain group previously developed. For young adults, feeling acceptance among peers is so important that they are disposed to do risky activities in order to “fit”. In real life they may drive a car without any permission, drink alcohol or have unprotected sex. In the stories, they simply decide to play a game that is beyond their understanding. Whatever the action would be, the precious “reward” is the same: fitting within a group and don’t be left aside.
As it was previously exposed, the urban myths analyzed so far reflect several aspects concerning adolescent’s behaviour in real life. This paper has focused its attention on three stories concerning the Ouija game, but surely there are many more out there. Probably, it is not just a coincidence that these three experiences have young adults as central characters who defy adult’s advice and adopt a risky behaviour by playing a dangerous game. However, it seems that they feel attracted to it. Perhaps, by reading other adolescent’s experiences, they might understand what they are facing with. If we, as adults, remember that period of our lives, we might understand the reason why some young adults experience the Ouija game. It might be possible that, by reading stories that partially reproduce the behaviours and attitudes young adults present in real life, they can feel that are not alone. Hopefully, this may help them to go through this difficult period.
REFERENCES
- Google “Ouija stories” http://ouijaboardtales.blogspot.com.ar/ (last accessed on October, 19th)
- Vega y otros, M. (2007) ‘Escritos Psicoanalíticos sobre adolescencia’ Bs As Ed. Eudeba
- Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia “Urban legend” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_legend (last accessed on October, 20th)
- Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia “Adolescence” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolescence (last accessed on October, 20th)
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