Gish Jen’s The Resisters features a dystopian version of America, post-automation. Society is divided into two groups: the Netted and the Surplus. The role of the Netted is to produce; they hold all of the jobs and only they are allowed to go NetU, the university for AutoAmerica. On the other side, the Surplus are tasked with consuming, which is how they earn Life Points, and most of their lifestyle is automated. The main character Gwen is raised in the Surplus community by her two parents who resist Aunt Nettie, the surveillance AI system that enforces compliance to the Surplus lifestyle. Gwen’s mother, Eleanor, used to be a lawyer and continues to fight for the Surplus in their community, despite Aunt Nettie’s disapproval. Even after being offered the chance to Cross Over and become part of the Netted, Eleanor refuses to abandon her values and continues to work against Aunt Nettie. Eventually, this leads Aunt Nettie to go to drastic measures to prevent Eleanor and her family leading any sort of uprising. 

By the end of the novel, Eleanor is arrested by EnforceBots and taken to a jail. When Gwen and her father, Grant, go to visit Eleanor, they discover that she has been taken to be a subject in a project on MindSharing. Eleanor describes the BioNet injection as a “neural net or lace… tracing my brain activity and uploading that into a computer that can decipher it and also download information—making for a two-way street.” (pg 237). Essentially, the BioNet allows Aunt Nettie to see Eleanor’s thoughts, and she can even control what Eleanor says, leaving Gwen and her father to decipher which words are truly Eleanor’s. This scene is an awakening for Gwen as she realizes what lines Aunt Nettie is willing to cross and the importance of Eleanor’s role in leading the Resistance. As Eleanor’s freedom and influence over the Surplus community is taken from her, Gwen understands that it is her job to step up to the plate in place of her mother. Furthermore, Gwen, as a part of the NetU baseball team, is in a unique position as an intermediary between the Surplus the Netted. 

Eleanor being arrested and injected with the BioNet is the real turning point of the resistance, as she becomes a public figure known by both the Surplus and the Netted. Because Gwen is able to live in both worlds, Eleanor’s resistance becomes known by both sections of society and she is able to gain a collective following of supporters. After Eleanor’s arrest, Gwen decides to play in the Olympic game between ChinRussia and AutoAmerica, and she receives overwhelming support from the crowd of Surplus fans in the arena. Eleanor and Grant, along with Winnie and Ondi, are in attendance at this game and when Eleanor gets up to use the bathroom and is presumably taken, Gwen runs off the field to the shouts of, “Down with Aunt Nettie! They’ve taken Aunt Nellie!” (292). This chant is started by the Surplus in Gwen’s community but the Netted join in the chant, really escalating the awareness of the Resistance. Previously in the book, those who resisted in the Surplus community did so in an individualized way, like how Gwen’s family took up knitting and growing their own food to resist consumption. As the novel progresses, the illegal baseball league is created and Eleanor wins her lawsuit about the mall food being drugged. By the end of the novel the Resistance really becomes a widespread movement, Eleanor being named Aunt Nellie and mall truck riots starting in the streets following the Olympic game. Eleanor became a symbol for the Resistance and her arrest, and subsequent death, triggered the start of the Resistance movement from being a Surplus problem to being recognized by the Netted community as well. 

Eleanor is arrested in part four of the novel, here is the link to the encoded text. 

Works Cited
Jen, Gish. The Resisters: A Novel. Vintage Contemporaries, Vintage Books, 2021.