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Dystopian Essay
Dystopian Essay
Delphinia Senske
English 4B
Mr.Brandes
6 March 2019
The novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline serves as a warning to our society that is
slowly moving out of the real world and into the digital one. The outside world is depicted as a
wasteland with people living in cramped communities constructed out of old shipping containers.
The condition of the outside world will never change because the citizens are distracted by the
OASIS, a virtual world where they can be and do anything. The OASIS also offers another
reality for citizens, to work in, go to school, and spend their money in, causing a lack of interest
in the issues of the real world. By combining the awful reality of the real world and the
distraction of the OASIS the novel Ready Player one is a perfect example of how dystopian
The world outside of the OASIS is shown as a world that has been destroyed, and is now
abandoned by its citizens. This is made clear to the reader on the very first page of the novel,
Wade is describing how he first heard of the contest for control over the OASIS and describes
his world around him as, ”after all, the people of earth had other concerns. The ongoing energy
crisis. Catastrophic climate change. Widespread famine,poverty, and disease. Half a dozen wars”
(Cline 1) The description of the world matches a typical dystopia, the citizens are suffering, and
the world has been torn apart by war and lack of resources. The main thing to take away from
this quote is that the problems Wade is describing are fixable. If citizens were mentally present
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in the real world, more focus and time would be spent on building better communities, and
increasing food production. This is how technology has taken peoples focus out of the real world
In the novel the OASIS serves as a distraction for the citizens, allowing them to escape
their own reality. Why would someone want to live in a world ruined by war and famine when
they could be in a fantasy world where they can do anything they want? Wade shows the reader
this distraction while describing a city, “The number of homeless people seemed to have
increased drastically. (...) Others waited in line at the free solar power charging stations, wearing
bulky, outdated visors and haptic gloves. Their hands made small, ghostly gestures as they
interacted with the far more pleasant reality of the OASIS via one of the GSS’s free wireless
access points.” (Cline 276) This quote that shows in this society they prioritize the distraction of
the OASIS above all else. They don’t have soup kitchens or homeless shelters, instead they have
wireless access points. This society continues to be a dystopia because instead of fixing the
issues that are ruining their world, they are distracted by the comfort of the virtual world.
The obvious solution to ending the technological control over the society would be to
shut off the OASIS, temporarily or permanently. Though now the OASIS has become so
entrenched in society that millions of people depend on it for jobs or for their education. Before
he found the first key Wade was a full time student at one of the hundreds of public schools in
the OASIS. Once he moves out of the stacks and into his apartment he gets a job in the OASIS in
order to help pay for his rent, “The only job I’d been able to get was as a tier-one technical
support representative at Helpful Helpdesk Inc.(...) Now I worked forty hours a week, helping
morons reboot their OASIS consoles and update the drivers for their haptic gloves. It was
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grueling work, but it paid the rent.” (Cline 206) Wade is one of the many people that if the
OASIS got shut down they wouldn’t be able to pay their rent or buy food. With the control the
OASIS has over the job market and education it would be impossible to shut it down in order to
return people’s attention to the real world. The technological control that the OASIS has over the
society has become so strong that it’s now impossible to have a world without it.
The society in the Ready Player One is a dystopian society that is enforced through
technological control. The outside world has been destroyed by war and famine, and people are
forced to live in horrible conditions. The only escape from this awful reality is the OASIS, which
is prioritized before the issues in the real world. People’s lives now revolve around the OASIS,
with their entire well being depending on their virtual job or school, leading to even more of a
detachment from the real world. This novel should serve as a warning to our society about what
happens when you let the virtual world take over reality.