Joyce Byers = Melanie Klein
At the beginning of the second season in Stranger Things, Will Byers, one of the two children of single mother Joyce Byers, and one of the main characters in the series, has been declared a missing person and the police-search has been unsuccessful. Will is actually captured in a parallel universe, in the walls of his own house. He tries to communicate over the phone, but his mother only manages to hear static sounds. Then Will uses decorative Christmas lamps, lamps that turn on and off, to send messages but nobody understands, until Joyce, having exhausted all the attempts to find him in this world, begins to notice patterns in the glittering. Similar to playing with a Ouija board, the pattern of the lamps create words that indicate directions and instructions from Will about where on the wall to dig. Joyce follows the instructions and Will is brought (pulled) back to this dimension.
Joyce actually does the same thing as Klein in the case of little Richard. Exhausted and willing to do anything to find her son, she accepts the game, just like Klein, who, after all the attempts at language interaction with Richard did not lead anywhere, concluded that only through a game was it possible to establish communication. As, through the lamps, Will directs his mother to dig in exactly the correct place, so did Richard allow Melanie Klein to know what was torturing him by slamming the train against the wall and running into the dark space. Will is gone into the walls of his house, and just the same as happens to Richard when he is in the dark place between the two rooms, he shouts, “Gone!”Will. Stuck in the other dimension, Will is doomed to decay just like the psychological structure of Richard in the real world.
Melanie Klein’s sessions with Richard took place in 1941, and 75 years later the first episode of the second season of Stranger Things was aired. Comparing the two putting them next to each other, we can notice the fascinating similarity between one of the most famous scenes from Stranger Things and the case of little Richard.