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Literary Devices
Flashbacks
Throughout the narrative, flashbacks are inserted to depict crucial moments of Seth’s past life. He experiences them as vivid, life-like dreams. These flashbacks are mostly self-contained chapters interspersed between chapters happening in Seth’s current time, keeping a clear divide between the past and the present. However, some dreams/memories are also interwoven within present chapters to blur the line between reality and fiction. Chapter 28, for example, draws a symbolic parallel between both of Seth’s suicide attempts, when he drowned himself and when he is running toward a cliff.
The flashbacks are a characterization tool that illuminates Seth’s character development. They contrast his past self and his current growth while providing background information about his relationships with his parents, Gudmund, and his friends in the online world. The flashbacks also create suspense by either retroactively explaining events or foreshadowing upcoming revelations. As Seth recovers more and more of his memories, his trajectory changes. When he remembers what really happened to Owen and finds his grave, flashbacks portray his parents choosing to move online permanently, and Seth can work through his guilt. The flashbacks give substance to the theme of The Effects of Trauma while allowing Seth to work through his trauma by making both the character himself and readers confront the events of the past.
The constant uses of flashbacks make the flow of time and reality ambiguous, contributing to the relativism of the theme of The Nature of Reality. In the end, Seth decides that reality is a matter of perception and that, because of the relationships he created there, his past in the simulation is no less real than his life in the post-apocalyptic world.
Subverted Narrative Tropes
Contributing to the Storytelling motif, Seth repeatedly references narrative tropes throughout the novel, pointing out unlikely coincidences, identifying typical expectations, and predicting major plot points. At the beginning of the book, Seth wonders what he is meant to do in this world: “Is there a goal? Something to solve? Or is he just supposed to stay here forever?” (35). This introduces the typical narrative stakes of a work of speculative fiction or science-fiction as Seth is aware of himself as a hero on a quest. However, this expectation of a resolution is subverted by the Open Ending, which instead leaves room for the reader’s interpretation.
The narrative contains examples of tropes that are reinforced, such as Seth and Regine predicting that Tomasz will “come in for a last-minute rescue” (343) at the prison. There are also examples that go against expectations; Seth believes that he will win the fight against the Driver precisely because the story should follow narrative rules, but instead is impaled and almost dies: “I’ll win, he thinks, dancing back as the Driver approaches. That’s how this story goes, doesn’t it? The enemy makes a surprise return just before the end, facing the hero one last time – And the hero wins” (180). The characters’ awareness of those tropes is a subversion in itself. By establishing plot points that may or may not happen, the narrative constantly blurs the line between reality and Storytelling. Seth mentions genre tropes directly after they escape from the Driver at Seth’s house:
‘Crap sci-fi,’ Seth mutters to himself. ‘Life is never actually that interesting. It’s the kind of story –’
He stops again.
It’s the kind of story where everything’s explained by one big secret, like everyone going online and what’s real and what’s not being reversed. The kind of story you watched for two hours, were satisfied with the twist, and then got on with your life. The kind of story his own mind would provide to make sense of this place (206).
This quote foreshadows some of the novel’s exact plot points, and in doing so reinforces the ambiguous Nature of Reality. Seth’s correct guesses defuse some of the narrative’s typical suspense and replace it with a questioning of the nature of reality itself.
Open Ending
The novel uses an open ending trope, which typically invites the reader to offer their own interpretation of the story and/or reflect more deeply on its central messages. The open ending contributes to the theme of The Nature of Reality, as Ness offers no clear answer about which world is real, simulated, or imagined, or answers about Seth’s fate and relationships. Seth’s recurring doubts reality throughout the novel build up to an ambiguous ending, leaving room for the reader to decide what is real and what is not.
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By Patrick Ness
