Escape In Ernest Cline's Ready Player One

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The Oasis Escape Due to a decline of natural resources, the year 2040 is filled with poverty, famine, and crime across the nation. The safest way for most citizens to live is on the online network, The Oasis, where one could attend school or shop online, rather than venturing out of the home to do these dangerous tasks. The Oasis creates opportunities, as highlighted in Ernest Cline’s novel Ready Player One. Eighteen year old Wade Owen Watts turns to his computer in hopes of improving his current living situation by embarking on a gaming journey, where the winner is awarded a large amount of money. Through Wade Watts, author Ernest Cline emphasizes the theme of finding an escape to distract an individual from their current life. Although Wade has always had a tough life, he continues to roll with the punches. His dad was shot and his mom died due to a drug overdose. In reaction to these events, Wade was an orphan and taken in by his iniquitous aunt. They live in a sketchy neighborhood called the”stacks”, owning a tiny trailer shared by fifteen people. Wane sleeps “in an old sleeping bag… wedged into the gap between the washer and the dryer” (Cline 13). Considering that small space is not an ideal living situation for a teenager, Wade …show more content…

Wade realizes that he could “escape the drudgery of [his] day-to-day life” by making his Oasis avatar anyway he wanted it to be, creating a whole new persona (Cline 57). Wade titles himself “Parzival”, an anonymous name where no one knows his true identity, an obese kid living a poverty stricken life. The Oasis allows him to be a new person, where he’s free to unleash his true personality and talk confidently to other. To extend, winning a video game on the Oasis could award him tons of money, for the billionaire creator, James Halliday declared that the “first person to [win his game] will inherit his entire fortune” (Cline 5). Wade, now

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