Would You Like To Reconnect Analysis
Do people really die online, or do they live on forever? Joanne Harris’ short story, “Would you Like to Reconnect?”, follows the story of a mother who has just lost her son and although he is dead, his twitter account remains active and maintains communication with the mother. Because of the grieving and confused character of the mother, the weary, lonely mood of the story along with the repetition and symbol of the twitter notification, the story clearly conveys a theme of how social media can be detrimental to humans, disconnect them from reality and distort perspectives all because we have no control over we we see online.
By admitting she is addicted and attached to her computer, the protagonist helps to reveal the broader theme of …show more content…
At the start of the story, the protagonist is so happy to have her son “at her fingertips” at all hours of the day, everywhere he goes. It is not until after his death that these twitter notifications from @Llamadude become much more significant and morph into a symbol for the grief, loneliness and missing piece in the mothers life. Although Charlie was dead, his twitter account was still active. Soon after his passing, the mom (@MTnester), began receiving notifications every couple of days saying the same thing; “An account you have been following (@Llamadude) has not posted in 14 days. Would you like to reconnect?”. At first, this message was symbolizing Charlie’s life for his lonely mother but as they kept on appearing in her inbox, this symbol of life, become much more questionable. Charlie’s account had somehow sent the mother a few private messages, the first just with a wink face and the second being a link to a photo of her house. This became too weird to be real and got the mother to question not only the social media platform but her own sanity as well. These notifications and messages continues appearing throughout the story and became a major symbol, revealing the theme of how social media is inescapable and how nobody really disappears
By admitting she is addicted and attached to her computer, the protagonist helps to reveal the broader theme of …show more content…
At the start of the story, the protagonist is so happy to have her son “at her fingertips” at all hours of the day, everywhere he goes. It is not until after his death that these twitter notifications from @Llamadude become much more significant and morph into a symbol for the grief, loneliness and missing piece in the mothers life. Although Charlie was dead, his twitter account was still active. Soon after his passing, the mom (@MTnester), began receiving notifications every couple of days saying the same thing; “An account you have been following (@Llamadude) has not posted in 14 days. Would you like to reconnect?”. At first, this message was symbolizing Charlie’s life for his lonely mother but as they kept on appearing in her inbox, this symbol of life, become much more questionable. Charlie’s account had somehow sent the mother a few private messages, the first just with a wink face and the second being a link to a photo of her house. This became too weird to be real and got the mother to question not only the social media platform but her own sanity as well. These notifications and messages continues appearing throughout the story and became a major symbol, revealing the theme of how social media is inescapable and how nobody really disappears