Dystopian literature is continuously changing, and each time I reflect back on a theme or topic from a specific novel, my attention shifts. To continue my exploration of dystopian fiction, I’d like to talk about Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One and delve further into my discussion from a previous blog post Escape the OASIS. As part of my study of dystopias, I found a classmate’s blog post on Ready Player One.
Gallucci, Nicole. “We Need to Talk about All These Absurd Stock Photos of Hackers.” Mashable, Mashable, 15 May 2017, mashable.com/2017/05/15/horrible-hacker-stock-photos/.
“The Link Between Air Pollution and Lung Cancer.” U.S. News & World Report, U.S. News & World Report, health.usnews.com/health-care/patient-advice/articles/2017-05-02/the-link-between-air-pollution-and-lung-cancer.
In Hannah’s blog, she introduces new materialism and the concept of “thing power”. Objects matter, and they have agency. Agency is the ability of an object to act and have impact on its own, and Hannah proposes that the OASIS has agency. The virtual world is intertwined with the real world, to the point that school and jobs can be found within the game. The economy outside of the game relies heavily on the OASIS itself. Hannah explains that Halliday’s creation, the OASIS, caused a rise in popularity of 80’s culture. The OASIS creates a complex virtual world with cultures and countercultures as well as sub cultures. The impact that the OASIS has is a result of the game’s agency.
New materialism aims to break down binaries such as nature vs human, and Ready Player One provides an excellent reason as to why. Climate change, wars, and the Global Energy Crisis that caused the real world in Ready Player One to decline so severely were the result of human intervention. Man-made factories, vehicles, and conflict devastated nature and the environment as a whole. This is why the OASIS became so popular, because it provided a form of escape. Hannah points out however that “the escape provided by the OASIS only encouraged the further collapse of the real world.” And this is true. The real world was neglected not only because the OASIS was more appealing than reality, but also because they could ignore the problems in the real word and the need for a solution.
Human agency has led to many great things in the real world, but new materialism suggests that we need to shift from the anthropocentric focus. Advancement in technology has benefited humans, but the things we create with technology have agency too. The internet, for example, is a great source for information but is also used to steal people’s identities and money. Netflix provides hours of entertainment, but it also leads to decreased productivity and increased energy expense.
The human initiative leads to natural impacts such as deforestation and pollution but also has a profound influence on culture. In Ready Player One, the people live in overpopulated, impoverished communities, because they are temporarily satisfied by the escape that the OASIS provides. The environment, including but not exclusively nature, is changed by humans in an effort to make things better for humans. With new materialism in mind, we could recognize the agency associated with the things we take for granted, such as unpolluted air and water. Dystopian novels, under the lens of new materialism, offer us a grave warning that agency is really out of our control.
Visit Hannah's blog:
Gallucci, Nicole. “We Need to Talk about All These Absurd Stock Photos of Hackers.” Mashable, Mashable, 15 May 2017, mashable.com/2017/05/15/horrible-hacker-stock-photos/.
“The Link Between Air Pollution and Lung Cancer.” U.S. News & World Report, U.S. News & World Report, health.usnews.com/health-care/patient-advice/articles/2017-05-02/the-link-between-air-pollution-and-lung-cancer.