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The Illusory Golden Egg: A Study of Dual Narrative Progressions in Ready Player One

Author(s)

Caibo Zhou

Affiliation(s)

School of Humanities, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, Jiangsu, China

Abstract

Directed by Steven Spielberg, a well-known Hollywood director, Ready Player One constructs a "metaverse" utopian world full of freedom and equality through a large number of intertexts of popular culture and colorful virtual reality imaginations, and has received high praise from a large number of movie fans. However, if we closely examine the narrative process of "Ready Player One", we can find another potential narrative drive hidden behind the explicit story of the film. This undercurrent of narrative runs through the entire film. It promotes the narrative process together with the explicit plot and shapes richer and more three-dimensional characters, and forms a profound opposition to the values of freedom and equality conveyed by the film, thus forming an internal contradictory tension in the theme of the film and endowing it with more complex and profound meanings and inspirations.

Keywords

Ready Player One; Latent Narrative; Metaverse; Intertextuality

References

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