Player One Themes

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For my report I have read the second half to the novel Player One by Douglas Coupland. The ladder half of the book is split into two chapters. The first, Hello, My Name is Monster the nuclear fallout on the airport becomes so violent the mysterious sniper has to seek safety inside the hotel lobby where he is caught and taken prisoner by the other characters. Rachel, the socially challenged bombshell and Rick, the down on his luck bartender have sex which sets Rachel on track to her life goal of reproducing. The sniper, Bertis, explains his motives to the group and a teenager, Max, blindly finds his way to the hotel lounge after chemicals get into his eyes and all over his skin. In the final chapter, The View from Daffy Ducks hole, Karen, the single mother, tends to Max’s wounds. Upon Rachel’s discovery that Bertis is Leslie Freemont’s son, she is shot in the chest, but does not die. The sniper, however, dies from an allergic reaction when he uses the rifle Rick sprinkled with peanut dust. Player One then reflects on the novel and reveals the groups fate. The novel Player One focuses on many themes including religion, after life, social issues, communication and particularly the concept of time passing and its meaning to humans. Themes in this half of the book are generally communicated through the insight to…show more content…
Through his character the author can reflect on how he believes religion effects the world and what ethics he himself has in terms of faith and sins. Max is a character that, although plays a small part in the novel, is significant because he describes to the group the conditions of the outside world; the explosions and death toll as well as the severity of the oil/gasoline crisis. As well as giving Karen a sense of security and a feeling of norm when he is chosen to care for the chemically burned
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