Elite Domination and Lower Class Resistance in Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One

https://doi.org/10.22146/lexicon.v7i1.64589

Dika Shafira Hidayat(1), Achmad Munjid(2*)

(1) English Department, Universitas Gadjah Mada
(2) English Department, Universitas Gadjah Mada
(*) Corresponding Author

Abstract


This research examines Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One (2011), a popular science fiction novel. The objective of this research is to find out how a massive company called IOI (Innovative Online Industries) runs its domination against people in the novel. Furthermore, this paper also studies how the people resist the company’s domination. This study uses Marxist Theory since it investigates class, class conflict and struggle, domination, and resistance. The elements of the theory are identified in the novel and therefore analyzed to reach the objectives. The results of the analysis show that conflict is the reason of class grouping. In Ready Player One, the capitalist wants to expand its domination by winning the easter egg hunt while the proletariat resists it. It is concluded that class struggle and conflicts brings the proletariat to work together to resist the capitalist’s domination.

Keywords


dominance; class; class conflict and struggle; resistance; Marxist theory

Full Text:

PDF 106-116


References

Bloom, C. (2008). Bestsellers: Popular fiction since 1900 (2nd ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Cawelti, J. G. (1976). Adventure, mystery, and romance: Formula stories as art and popular culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Cline, E. (2012). Ready player one. London: Arrow Books.

Crossman, A. (2017, March 06). A sociological definition of class conflict and struggle. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/class-conflict-3026134.

Farris, A. (2017). Identity through performance and play: Ernest Cline's Ready player one. The Phoenix Papers, 3. doi:10.18411/a-2017-023

Giddens, A. (2001). Capitalism & modern social theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Maas, A. (2010, October 14). Marx's theory of working-class revolution. Retrieved April 19, 2019, from https://socialistworker.org/2010/10/14/marxs-theory-of-working-class-revolution.

Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1984). Manifesto of the communist party. Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm.

Nash, J. E., & Calonico, J. M. (1996). The meanings of social interaction: An introduction to social psychology. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.

Nordstorm, J. (2016). A pleasant place for the world to hide: Exploring themes of utopian play in Ready player one [Abstract]. Interdisciplinary Literary Studies,18. doi:10.5325/intelitestud.18.2.0238.

Parrillo, V. N. (2008). Encyclopedia of social problems. Sage Publications. doi: 10.4135/9781412963930.

Permatasari, H. P. (2015). Social class and poverty in American society in the 200’s era as seen in Suzanne Collin’s The hunger games novel. (Unpublished undergraduate thesis), Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyayakarta, Indonesia.

Ritzer, G. (2010). Sociological theory (8th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Tyson, L. (2006). Critical theory today (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.

Wright, E. O., & Rogers, J. (2010). American society: How it actually works. New York: W.W. Norton.



DOI: https://doi.org/10.22146/lexicon.v7i1.64589

Article Metrics

Abstract views : 5083 | views : 3006

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2020 Dika Shafira Hidayat, Achmad Munjid

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.


Lexicon Office

English Department
Faculty of Cultural Sciences,
Universitas Gadjah Mada
Soegondo Building, 3rd Floor, Room 306
Yogyakarta, Indonesia 55281
Telephone: +62 274 513096
Email: lexicon.fib@ugm.ac.id

ISSN: 2746-2668 (Online)

Web Analytics View Stats

Creative Commons License
LEXICON is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Lexicon is indexed in

 

About UsSubmissionIssuePoliciesReview