Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is a novel that contains worlds within worlds within worlds. The futuristic novel follows protagonist Wade Watts as he competes within a massive virtual reality world, the OASIS, to be the person who solves the riddles and wins control over the entire OASIS. The OASIS itself is composed of many different worlds within the same virtual reality. In order to win, Wade must solve three riddles with his impressive amount of 1980s trivia. Because the riddles must be solved within the OASIS, Wade ignores the real world in favor of the virtual one. In doing so, the novel tells how terrible the real world is, and why most of humanity chose to retreat to the virtual world of the OASIS, by listing problems found in our society today. Cline, through the different worlds found in the novel, provides a warning to readers of what could happen to today’s society if technology and environmental damage continue at the same place as they are now. Shown below is the trailer for the Ready Player One film that came out in 2018.

 

This digital anthology provides examples from three chapters of Ready Player One where Cline lays out problems in the novel that are present in our society. The examples show how Cline warns his readers about the dangers of using escapism to ignore the major problems in the world. 

Within the fictional world of Ready Player One, two main distinct worlds emerge: the real world and the virtual world of the OASIS. Most of the book focuses on the virtual world. OASIS, the multi-player video game most of humanity spends their days immersed in, is the main setting of the novel. Wade has spent his life living in the OASIS because the reality of the world around him is so awful, all he wants to do is escape it and live in the virtual one. 

In contrast, the real world in the novel is talked about as the reason for why humanity retreated into the virtual world. Cline describes the real world as grim, and it serves as a foil to the amazing world of the OASIS, where everyone’s dreams can come true. The real world is treated, at least in the first half of the novel, as a necessary place to inhabit when performing actions to keep one alive, and nothing more than that. As shown later on in the novel, when Wade retreats from society to focus all his time and energy on the search for the next riddle, he explicitly states, “The hour or so after I woke up was my least favorite part of each day, because I spent it in the real world" (195) The real world is depicted as a necessary evil for most of the novel, while the OASIS is a place of escape and refuge. 

When narrating the real world, Wade points the reader to specific reasons for why the real world is so awful. He lists items that are problems in our world today, such as the Global Energy Crisis (17). Cline, even though writing in a fictional world, connects it to today’s world. Doing so makes the novel more relatable and provides a warning for readers. That is, if we continue in our ways, we too will end up like the characters in the novel, forced to escape into a virtual reality to live because the real world is so awful and dismal. After all, fiction often mirrors reality, and Cline employs such knowledge to let his readers know that if the world continues to progress in the same way, we too will want to escape the world. Shown below is the real world vs virtual world of Wade Watts. As one can see, the virtual world is much brighter and more exciting than the real world. 

Cline sets up the world for the reader most apparently in chapter one, where the main protagonist Wade Watts spells out the situation for the reader, in a pages-long monologue about his beliefs, the state of the world around him, and why he adores the OASIS so much (16-19). The passage annotated comes early in chapter one, where Wade is describing how he was able to learn all his 1980s trivia and his family/living situation. Cline moves from focusing on Wade’s individual life, to the problems in his family, then in the world as a whole. The setting is then firmly described for the novel, and then the action can begin progressing inside the OASIS, as the chapter ends with Wade’s entry into the virtual world.

Text Annotation of Chapter 1 Passage, showing examples from today's society about the issues Cline discusses in the novel.

The second passage annotated is from the portion of chapter five where Wade is discussing how the OASIS works, and people can reinvent themselves with their online personas. Cline has Wade make it clear that people can escape the boringness and sadness of their everyday lives by having grand adventures in the OASIS. Once again, the energy crisis is brought up to show how peoples' only means of escape is the OASIS.

Text Annotation of Chapter 5 Passage, where Wade shows that in the OASIS, you can be anyone you want to escape reality.

The third passage annotated is from chapter 9, when Wade is talking with the love interest Art3mis. During the course of their discussion about what they would do if they won the contest, Cline has them casually mention how the world is awful and everything is dying. The destruction of the real world is so commonplace, the characters do not think they could solve it, even with all the money from winning the contest. 

Text Annotation of Chapter 9 Passage, where Wade and Art3mis talk about the end of the world.

In fact, Cline is not really wrong about the predictions he made in Ready Player One, that people will want to retreat into the virtual realm when reality gets to be too terrible. We are already well on our way. Throughout ENGL 311, we have looked at and analyzed the various ways technology has affected our society. Much of the beginning of the course was focused on the internet and computers, and how it is either making us smarter (Smarter Than You Think by Clive Thompson), destroying our privacy (The Circle by Dave Eggers), or ruining our lives through algorithms (Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O'Neil). Technology is everywhere in the world today, and will not disappear. The problems our world faces today will not disappear either, no matter how much we rely on technology as a distraction. We as readers must heed Cline’s warnings about reality and not fall prey to the enticing escape virtual worlds provide, if we are to prevent global catastrophe. 

Images shown below are of the fictional Stacks in the novel and of lower income housing housing today in New York. The real world Cline crafts in Ready Player One is not very far from our own reality.

Works Cited

Cline, Ernest. Ready Player One. Dark All Day, Inc., 2011.

Dahlman, LuAnn and Rebecca Lindsey. “Climate Change: Global Temperature.” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 19 Sept. 2019. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature. Accessed 19 Nov. 2019. 

“Formation of Fossil Fuels.” Youtube, uploaded by Earth: The Operators’ Manual, 9 April 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8VqWKZIPrM.

Joyce, Christopher. “The 'Great Dying' Nearly Erased Life On Earth. Scientists See Similarities To Today.” National Public Radio, 4 June 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/06/04/729341362/the-great-dying-nearly-erased-life-on-earth-scientists-see-similarities-to-today. Accessed 21 Nov. 2019. 

Knight, Jacob. “These READY PLAYER ONE Character Posters Are Colorfully Fugly.” Birth.Movies.Death, 15 Feb. 2018, https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2018/02/15/these-ready-player-one-character-posters-are-colorfully-fugly. Accessed 21 Nov. 2019.  

Milligan, Mercedes. “Planeta Junior to Represent ‘The Smurfs’ in Spain and Portugal.” Animation Magazine, 30 Jan. 2019, https://www.animationmagazine.net/top-stories/planeta-junior-to-represent-the-smurfs-in-spain-portugal/. Accessed 21 Nov. 2019.  

“Ready Player One - Official Trailer [HD].” Youtube, uploaded by Warner Bros. Pictures, 10 Dec. 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSp1dM2Vj48.