ENG 200: Critical Reading & Writing Literature
Ernst Cline’s Ready Player One depicts a 80s nostalgic futurist adventure story filled with mystery and easter eggs. The main premise of the story shows a highly intelligent teenager Wade Watts who is on a quest to find the hidden fortune of genius game inventor James Halliday. Wade is eighteen and living in the outskirts of Oklahoma City with his aunt Alice, after the passing of his parents. Set in 2045 the world around them has fallen due to climate change retreated the population to the online video game OASIS. Cline depicts an era of civilization that neglected the environment around them. The consequences of the creation of OASIS, humanity has decentered to the virtual world leaving the one before in ruin. Setting a clear correlation between the descent of mankind from the excessive use of technology.
Cline uses the ecocriticism theory as an amplifier to the plot, a driving force. In analyzing the relationships between literature and the physical environment, ecocriticism is commonly used as an umbrella term. Generally, focused on the critical practices and their importance throughout. We can see that in Clines’s work as he sets up the world he built as a character itself. He reveals more and more about the state of the world through each of the chapters, dropping the veil of the theoretical harsh reality if completely descended into the virtual world. He evokes ecocritics ideology through the OASIS game and shares his views on excessive technology. Viewing humanity as lost, along with the world around them, due to manmade creations. Since the development of OASIS, a present theme of discovering the difference between reality and illusion has been hard for the characters. Civilization, or the one that we are familiar with, has collapsed. Neglect of the world led to a chain reaction to the disconnect in society. The antagonist, Nolan Sorrento, is a clear example of this theme as he stops at nothing to ensure his triumph of the prize.
The world in the book is bleak. Not the colorful life we think of, only vast environmental destruction. Over time climate change was happening, yet the people were sucked into their devices they did not stop helping. The oil and energy crisis lead populus cities to decentralize. Wade mentions the population increase has led to housing issues. To alleviate this, they created stacks. Resulting in a one-step forward, two-step back situation. The stacks serve as a short-term solution until the urbanized societies were flooded with crime. Cline describes many families faced unemployment during the environmental crisis. In 2045, they hardly show any real food. Primarily their diet consists of soy bacon and powdered eggs. Subtly hinting that the animal population is scarcely low eliciting a food shortage. Thus the appeal of Halliday’s game. OASIS was a place society can retreat to from the dreadful reality. Escaping the environmental collapse into a new world at the touch of their fingers.
In the introduction, we are introduced to Halliday’s passing as he leaves his will to be broadcasted to everyone playing his multiplayer interactive game OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation). The name of the game is a juxtaposition of Cline showing the disillusionment of this paradise. Seems, like a game that anyone can log into and do whatever they want sounds like an oasis. Rather, it entrapped everyone and led to this dissociative community. This game revolutionized their society, completely isolating everyone from the outside world to the virtual world. Leading to a 2045 post-apocalyptic world due to the neglect of the environment around them. Cline shows the descent of civilization through the rise of the game OASIS. He depicts floods and natural disasters that destroy cities leading the population to relocate to new housing called stacks. Stacks are exactly what it sounds, trailers stacked upon each other. With real-life becoming more and more inhabitable with famine, chaos, and poverty, life had transferred onto the game.
OASIS is widely implemented in the way of life. School, business, hobbies, and everything imaginable are run through OASIS. Hardly anything is run outside, except for Innovative Online Industries (IOI). IOI is the antagonist of the story, the enemy company dead set on winning the prize for themselves to expand their business and take control of the game. Run by Nolan Sorrento, he finds a loophole in the quest where he hires thousands of egg hunters called Sixers whose sole purpose is to search for the prize. The OASIS company was founded by both James Halliday and his friend Ogden Morrow, who is still alive.
Referring to human life as bleak, Halliday encourages users to play his game. Whether it’s the negligence of the environmental state of the world or primarily wanting more users logged in, Halliday’s manmade creation brought up the ruin of the world. We follow Wade living through an environmental crisis, yet idolizing the game even after all its destruction. Halliday created the game so everyone can be a “somebody”, a new way to connect. Since Wade classified himself as a loner prior to the game, he went to OASIS to find friends. With not much life left in real life, it would be hard to make friends in the middle of environmental ruin. Wade does end up learning about environmental descent through the libraries in OASIS. Learning something as fundamental as being part of the human race was news to Wade. Wade reveals that his mother told him about some part of the world before, how it was a slow crisis. Similar to the one we live in now.
The next clue brings him to a recreation of Halliday’s childhood home in Middletown, Ohio. The name Middletown is contrasting the exemplary reputation of Halliday. Middletown is as average and normal of a fictional town compared to the infamous genius billionaire James Halliday. When entering the hope he finds the second challenge. Once completing the first gate he retires for the day, logging off OASIS. These moments where he logs off and reverts to a real-life show the theme of reality vs illusion. Cline writes the majority of the book in the setting of OASIS showing how implemented the game is into their lives. Showing less time in real life rather than in the game. Appearing to grow familiarity with the virtual world, that when we are transported out of that reality the real world feels more fictional.
Then receiving an email from Sorrento to join his company to be a sixer, since he has shown more progress in the quest than anyone in years. Even after being offered millions for a position at the company, Wade refuses which agitated Sorrento. We see Sorrento’s evil intentions prevail when he reveals that he knows Wade’s true identity and threatens to harm him and his aunt. This starts the theme of the individual against the collective, working off of marxism ideals. Sorrento represents the corporate power and elitism that those, such as Wade, fight against. If he had chosen to be a sixer for the company, he would have lost all individuality he had. His user name, his purpose, his life, and even credit for hiding the quest. Sorrento is consumed with power and control, symbolizing the descent of man through the virtual world. Losing all humanity and only seeing people as avatars. Cline alludes to the power large corporations have on society, leaving individuals powerless, in our present day. The narrative shows the duality between those in poverty and those who accumulated wealth and have been affected by the environmental crisis. Sorrento has excelled in this situation, profiting off of those in poverty.
Through working together on searching for clues, Wade reveals to Artemis his feelings for her while at a party for Morrow. She dismisses his feeling saying that they don’t even know each other, yet he is in love with her. This reiterates the theme of the blurred lines between reality and illusion. We get hints that Artemis is more pragmatic when it comes to noticing the difference between the two. Showing she has not succumbed to the disillusionment. She symbolized the remaining few who care for reality rather than the virtual world.
As the narrative thickens, we are met with a brief glimpse into the harsh reality outside of the illusion. Wade is met by the police at his door for this overdue payment on his card. While in the black market, he buys a gun and logs into OASIS from a place called the Plug. The Plug is a lounge to log into OASIS is prohibited by IOI. The subtle detail that Cline choose was creating a space in which users can log on. Showing the dependency of this video game, and how places have been implemented to accommodate the need for the virtual world. Rather than building places for food shortage, housing, or gardens, they have built OASIS lounges. With IOI prohibiting the use of private lounges, it further sinks in their control over the mass.
Cline writes the narrative under the themes of obsession and hero archetypes. Wade symbolizes the underdog, in comparison to Sorrento and the Sixers, and the orphan archetype as they are known to challenge adversity. Both Sorrento and Wade are similar in the sense that they both share the same obsession over Halliday acting as a driving force for both of them. Of course, the only thing separating them is the way they enact their pursuits. Wade takes the high road, playing the game fairy as Halliday intended. While Sorrento leads a dehumanized way of mass destruction. This a motif of the descent of man through the virtual world as Sorrento gives no care for real lives, only virtual ones. Clines shows the difference between a utopia and a dystopia. When the game was created it had served the idea that it would be a savior, a utopia.
Rather it became a dystopia, leading to environmental neglect from the excessive use of technology, depleted the mass of human interaction, and their disassociative perception of the real world. The juxtaposition of being closer to each other through the virtual world rather than in person.
Maya Young 