There Is No Place Like Hawkins

Abstract

Drawing heavily on popular culture of the early 1980s, Stranger Things revisits the era’s fractured notions of family through the perspective of its characters. Eleven finds home, like many other children of the 1980s, in dependable friends, acquaintances who have suffered similar circumstances, and pseudo-stepdads. In the final two seasons, home is depicted as a site of trauma and as a contested place. Eleven’s ambiguous ending ultimately complicates the meaning of “home” in the series.