Semiotics in A Quiet Place

A Quiet Place, released in 2018 and directed by John Krasinski centers around a family of four with another child on the way, who cannot make a sound, or they will be hunted by monsters that use their sense of hearing to go after their prey.

At face value, A Quiet Place is a movie about a made up world with monsters who hunt their victims by sound. However, the messages and symbols in this movie are representative of something much greater than monsters on the hunt. Through the lens of semiotics, I will analyze A Quiet Place as a movie about family and sacrifice, more so than monsters in a fantasy world.

In Messages, signs, and meanings: A basic textbook in semiotics and communication, we learn about the difference between connotation and denotation. A connotation refers to the meanings behind words that are associated with them, while denotation is more representative of the word’s literal meaning.

These two concepts are very important in A Quiet Place because the symbols in this movie, through the family and the monsters have a much wider array of connotations than their denotative identifications.

The overarching theme throughout the movie is the family’s fear. They are obviously scared of the monsters, and all the scenes have a very dark setting, accompanied by the fact that there is little to no sound, making them all the more thrilling and even scary. While the denotation is their fear for the monsters, which is instilled into the audience as the movie progresses, the connotation behind this fear is “the possibility of failing to protect your kin” (Livingston).

What is truly being represented through the fear of the monsters is the fear of not being able to protect your family. In the movie, it is represented very literally, as if the parents fail to protect their kids from making sounds, they will literally get eaten alive. However, the true meaning behind it boils down to the fear that all parents have, that their kids will be in danger and they won’t be able to protect them at all costs.

Obviously, this fear is hyperbolized in the movie through the ever-present fear of being hunted, but even in the real world, parents are constantly fearful for their children whether the danger their in be as small as a scrape on the knee.

The familial aspect of the movie is also representative of much more than just survival for a family of four in this dystopian universe; it’s connotation is about the sacrifice members of a family make for one another, especially the parents. Both parents are so protective of their children, even going as far as putting their own lives in danger in order to protect the two children.

Not to mention the fact that the mother is having another child, meaning that she is putting herself through the pain of birthing a child in complete silence, in order to have a family. The two parents, played by real life spouses John Krasinski and Emily Blunt also do everything in their power to create a normal environment for their children. They run the risk of making noise in some of the things they do, but they want to make the children’s lives as pleasant as they possibly can, through any means necessary. Similar to the representation of a parent’s fear for their child, the symbols of silence are about a parents sacrifice for their child, which is also something that all parents experience, even if not at the literal level of the movie.

The movie also has a social-political meaning in its symbols. Krasinski was deliberate in casting a hearing-impaired actress to play the deaf child in the movie. In the movie, her lack of hearing puts the family at an advantage, because they are able to communicate through sign language already, but it also puts them at a disadvantage, because if she accidentally makes a sound she would have no way of knowing until it was too late.

The fact that he hired a deaf actress, however, makes it much more real for the audience. Since deafness is something the girl experiences in real life, that characteristic of her movie character is much more real and therefore intriguing, because its something she doesn’t have to pretend to be. The meaning behind this is that although she faces much different struggles in the movie than she does in real life, those struggles are exacerbated by the fact that she is hard of hearing, and this is true of real life too, as she must do and learn things very differently than a hearing person.

The movie A Quiet Place has meaning much deeper than that of monsters in an alternate universe. Through the use of the symbols in the silence, and the hunting of the monsters, we see that the movie is much more about family, a parents sacrifice for their children, and all that they would do for their protection. Although we do not have to stay silent, in fear of being hunted in real life, the emotions we feel toward our family, especially those that parents feel toward their children are very meaningful, and therefore relatable from the audience perspective.