This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

Themes of Death Depicted in Electronic Literature

explanation of death

This page is referenced by:

This Is How You Will Die

This Is How You Will Die is a random death generator which is set up like a casino machine and conglomerates five randomly generated scenarios to create a somewhat coherent story of how you die. This ‘game’ was created by Jason Nelson who , it would seem , was attempting to create a whimsical ‘death generator’ and did not mean to actually talk about death, its horrifying realities and the many ways it can hit you. None of the possibilities in the game, by themselves or together, seem serious enough to be real, let alone scare the player.

'This Is How You Will Die' is a clear, innovative representation of the idea that death is random and unpredictable.

The player clicks on the death spin button so as to get an outcome of how you will die. Each player has demise credits which we lose after every spin. The player must have at least ten credits so as to spin.

'This Is How You Will Die' attempts to highlight the randomness that is characteristic of death; instead of predicting how we might die or worrying about it, we might as well mash together random ways one could die so as to create one coherent story. The introduction to 'This Is How You Will Die' on the website for the Electronic Literature Collection describes “over-the-top satirical whimsy typical of Nelson’s absurdist worldview” and 'This Is How You Will Die' is a fairly good representation of that. Behind all the whimsy and humour, Nelson attempts to strip away the little comfort that one finds in the reality of death in the idea or illusion that everyone has a comfortable death after living a long and happy life, that they get to say goodbye to their loved ones and perhaps even make their way through their bucket list. Nelson strips away this comfort with great effectivity and pessimism while unsuccessfully attempting to hide this dark basis behind this piece of e-literature.