Blank Space: Looking Beyond the Image

Blank Space: Looking Beyond the Image

            Blank space on a screen or a page evokes curiosity about what lies beyond that which is visible to the reader or viewer of the text. In games like the popular Slender: The Eight Pages, fear is formed through withholding part of the screen from the player. As the character walks the only visible part of the game is what the flashlight illuminates, and beyond that is darkness. As the flashlight grows dimmer, or as the person runs, the game becomes darker and the fear of what resides in the darkness, in this case the faceless malign entity Slenderman, creates the intense fear that has made the game fun for so many players. In texts like The Dark or the game Beyond Eyes, fear and discomfort is created and emphasized by the use of blank space on the page. Where the space exists the reader can never be certain what is going unseen, and the uncertainty develops into fear when tension is increased in what is being shown.

Slender: The Eight Pages

            The Dark tells the story of a little boy named Laszlo who is afraid of the dark, and in this story, dark is personified as the story develops and the child explores his home. The book begins with an introduction, “Laszlo was afraid of the dark,” showing the boy sitting in a room peering towards the window that shows the sun sinking down signaling the end of the day (Snicket). While the darkness on this initial page is just beginning to develop in the shadows, it implies that the setting sun is bringing the darkness, his fear, with it. Laszlo’s facial expression and gestures also signify his fear as his mouth is drawn in a straight line and he faces the window, one hand outstretched, in anticipation of the incoming darkness. Beside his knee sits a flashlight, another reminder that he has prepared in some form for the impending night.

The Dark

The light and dark are shown as clear opposites on the page, with bright areas revealing only line art against a nearly fully white surface, and darkness as pure black with only a few small details, like a railing or stairs. When the light bulb in his own room goes out one night, it says, “‘Laszlo,’ the dark said, in the dark” (Snicket). The page is all blank aside from the white text and a small image of his face and hand holding the flashlight while tucked into his bed. Past this point the book’s pages are black aside from the few, small areas lit by his flashlight. They mirror the earlier pages of the text but now cast them in darkness, showing the unfamiliarity of the landscape at night.

The Dark

It enhances the tension as Laszlo goes in search of the darkness, seeming very small against the nearly blank areas of the pages. Particularly in the basement, where Laszlo is placed into the upper left corner and the little table with drawers is in a fully blackened page that says only, “Laszlo had never dared come to the dark’s room at night. ‘Come closer,’ said the dark” (Snicket). By placing him in an area where the only other visible objects on the page are  steep stairs and furniture that appears to embody the role of the darkness, it makes the reader feel concerned for him and about what may be hidden beyond the flashlight. The conclusion, that leads Laszlo to discovering that the dark sought only to give him more light bulbs, culminates in his realization that with the drawer opened and knowing its contents he no longer had anything to fear within the dark basement or home.

The Dark

Beyond Eyes forms a narrative about a girl who is blind that can visualize the world around her through familiar sounds. She begins in the garden outside her home, and never ventures beyond the garden, so the only images she can currently imagine include those of sounds she has heard in the garden. The world around her begins as a beautiful, colorful, flower filled paradise. It is exactly the kind of fairytale, fantasy world that a child would dream up. When a cat named Nani arrives, she begins to develop a friendship with him and becomes quickly attached. 

Beyond Eyes

Outside of what she visualizes, Rae's world is shown only with blank, white space. This space fills up as she moves around and hears creatures and movement around her. If a bird is chirping from across the garden, even if she is not close enough to imagine the grass or trees in that area, she can picture that bird and its relative location from its sounds. As of the beginning of the game it is gentle, fun, and relaxing as Rae moves around and experiences the world through a combination of sound and image. The story itself is provided through text that appears on the screen at certain points, but aside from this text, the game develops through movement as Rae walks around and listens. When she leaves the garden in search of the cat, it moves from calm and relaxing sound and imagery to unexpected twists. 

Beyond Eyes

The first time a twist is introduced is when she imagines a fountain like the one in her garden, but when she gets closer, it transforms into a pipe spewing water. These transformations happen frequently after she leaves the garden, which makes the player feel concerned about whether sounds and images will be what they seem each time Rae encounters something new. A few other examples include her discovery of a busy road, a dog shown above, and a scarecrow covered in crows. When the sounds transform so do the images and the surrounding land until she feels comfortable and safe again. Rae's world develops dark, shadowy areas and her posture becomes tense and fearful until the sound is far enough away to relax. 

She is guided by her hope that she will find Nani, and she sometimes imagines him guiding her, or imagines that she hears him and she pictures Nani for a few moments until she realizes it is another animal or sound. While Beyond Eyes uses more curiosity than fear, its lack of a defined setting past Rae's imagined world does something unique in forming the story through a combination of sight, sound, and imagination. The inclusion of little tricks of the mind that create false images and sounds adds to its ability to immerse the player into this world despite the blurred edges and inability to look ahead and know what may be lurking beyond Rae's imagination. 

Beyond Eyes

Beyond Eyes and The Dark use largely blank landscapes to allow the reader/player to form what fills them in through his/her own imagination. This increases the involvement of the person experiencing the text and allows the texts to have surprises and unexpected twists around every corner. Even when it seems like the reader knows what is ahead, they circumvent that and create new assumptions or beliefs. The Dark, which initially creates the fear of what lies in the darkness eventually reveals that the darkness only wanted to lead Laszlo to more light bulbs and to show him that there was nothing to fear in the first place. Beyond Eyes creates a narrative that reveals how decreasing a sense, but increasing another, can form a world that is vastly different from reality. However, this world can be built into something even more beautiful than reality, except for when it is deceptive. What lies ahead is always assumed to be light and flowers, but sometimes can turn out to be dangerous for Rae.