Books and reading in resident evil 4 (2005).

Abstract

Thinking the game Resident Evil 4 (2005) as a cultural object and textual support in interface with the cultural and textual studies, as evidenced by the historian Roger Chartier (2002), and under the perspective of practices and representations, I investigate how reading and books manifest themselves materially in the game. Theorists who deal with the cultural history of reading and texts are read in this study (such as Márcia Abreu, Regina Zilberman (1999) and game studies theorist Miguel Sicart (2011)) as well as the appreciation of the narrative, dialogues and scenes of the game that contains elements related to reading and literature. It can be seen that, as cultural objects, videogames carry representations of social practices of the real sensible world and that, in Resident Evil 4 (2005), reading is represented as an idealized practice and that books, moreover, are considered as assets owned by privileged social classes. These representations, therefore, dialogue with the image of reading as an ennobling and cultured practice. Another possible apprehension is the reading of the texts of videogame games as an important literacy in the globalized world. In addition to global capitalist “catechization”, the literate player is thought of as a participant in the globalized culture.