Trigger Happy
312
instance, is an index, in that it shares in and points to
deep structural features of the landscape it describes,
but it is also an icon, in that it simply looks like the
terrain as seen from the air. The illuminated first letter
of a medieval manuscript is both a symbol, in that it
functions as a component of language, and an icon, in
that it is an illustration. An Egyptian hieroglyph is an
icon, in that it is a pictogram, but it is also a symbol, in
that it has an agreed meaning.
So, Pac-Man is a symbol. “His form,” the
character’s creator has noted, “simply represents the
personification of eating.” And indeed, Pac-Man is a
game about eating. The dots littering his world are so
perfectly symbolic as not to represent any object. They
are there to be munched; that’s all.
While we’re on the subject of eating, note that
the very theme of the game is at once infantile and
politically loaded. It has been argued that Pac-Man
was the first arcade game to be a substantial success
with female gamers precisely because of this
philosophy of consumption: eating is figured not as
something to be wary of, but something to be
celebrated, something (literally) empowering.
However, it seems equally reasonable from this
distance to read Pac-Man—a game from a country,
