Examining Common Themes Between The Nether and Radicalized

This paper involves a detailed literary analysis of two speculative fiction works: Jennifer Haley’s 'The Nether' and Cory Doctorow’s 'Radicalized.' Both narratives explore the dark undercurrents of technological misuse within their respective worlds. The Nether is set in a dystopian future where society increasingly retreats into virtual realms to escape environmental devastation, focusing on themes such as the ethical implications of escapism and the exploitation of vulnerable populations through advanced technology like encryption in pedophilic scenarios. Radicalized presents stories that highlight the potential misuses of emerging technologies, including automation and artificial intelligence, exploring their societal impacts. The assignment examines these works for shared thematic elements, particularly how they depict technology’s dual role as both a tool for liberation and control. This comparative study reveals broader concerns about humanity's relationship with technological progress, ethical boundaries, and the consequences of unchecked innovation.

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Literary Analysis of The Nether and Disgraced
Literary works are written by authors with the intention of bringing to the audience a
particular aspect of the society which they believe is concerning and therefore, needs to be
addressed. All forms of art and culture are a reflection of the elements which are present in the
society. They attempt to portray the social evils as well as the efforts of the human kind to revolt
against the prevalence of such social evil with the objective of transforming the society for the
better. The thesis statement of this paper is to analyze two pieces of literary work. One of them is
titled “Disgraced” as written by Ayad Akhtar and the other is titled “The Nether” as written by
Jennifer Haley. The stories and the main message of the literary pieces have been analyzed in the
context of this paper with the intention of bringing out their outcome in front of the readers.
The play Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar is a novel that deals with the themes of Islam phobia
and it also the quest for the identity of Muslims. The play is focused on the main protagonist
whose name is Amir Kapur and his wife Emily. Both of them try hard to struggle with their
conflicts regarding the religion of Islam. On one hand where Amir has a strict, hostile and a very
radical concept of Islam, Emily on the other hand acts moderate and has a more liberal stance

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towards the same. Both the characters are often seen being in a rift because both are in search of
their identities. Both have their individual struggles in commenting against their individualistic
interpretations of the religion of Muslim (Akhtar). In the book, it was written that “A man, a
waiter, looking at you … not seeing you. Not seeing who you really are. Not until you started to
deal with him. And the deftness with which you did that. You made him see that gap. Between
what he was assuming about you and what you really are” (Akhtar). This shows that the staunch
character of Amir arose from the fact that his religious identity often made him a victim of the
evil gaze of the society. No one acknowledged his presence and was often the prey of racism.
Amir being an expressive man of violence and rage, being bitter towards his own
interpretations, contrasts the character of Emily who often is seen to deal with the situations
calmly and arguing her stand point with sufficient logic and reason. The character of Amir
Kapur, has a severe confession towards the dark nature of humanity. In this play by Ayad
Akhtar, Amir has been represented a husband with dark, violent and destructive impulses
(Akhtar). The rift regarding their ideologies affected their relationship to this extent that Amir
Kapur had ended up striking his wife, resorting to violent means. The play thus had a ending
which shocked the audience since both Amir and Emily had an official separation. Through the
character of both of them, the playwright wanted to instill a powerful question among the
audience that the moderate or radical vies of Islam are irreconcilable or not (Akhtar).
The play has a major role in having an impact over the effect of prejudice in the modern
society. One of the incidents as mentioned in the book regarding the aspect of modernization is
present in the quote “You know how much easier things are for me since I changed my name?
It’s in the Quran. It says you can hide your religion if you have to” (Akhtar). This reveals the
hypocrisy of the character. The religious book of the Muslims, the Holy Quran, was being quoted

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in order to change or hide the religious nature of an individual. Thus, an attempt was made to
modernize oneself by taking recourse to religion. Through the character of Amir Kapur, the play
portrays that there had been an underlying prejudice in the society irrespective of the
modernization. There had been severe struggle between what was rational and between the
strong interpretations of the religion. Even when Emily tried to prove her point rationally, Amir
did not want to appreciate it. He had been very stubborn and refused to the logical interpretation
of Islam (Akhtar). He saw Islam as a collection of mere ideas which had been traditional and
which played an important role in promoting savagery.
The fictional character that Amir had adopted in America had a lot to say about the
character in real. He had been violent in his means and his actions represented very clearly that
he had been a strong believer of the Islam. Being violent is not an attitude of a foreign land, or of
a person who has adopted a foreign character. Violence had always been the only extreme means
of attitude of the radical Islam believers (Akhtar). The play with the portrayal of the character of
Emily, and Amir and also with the religious views of Islam actually speaks of the tragic love
story between a couple who had been rifted apart due to religion. Through them, the playwright
effectively paints the picture of juxtaposition of two different forms of identities, which are the
transnational identity and the national one. There is an underlying responsibility throughout the
play which has effectively arose when Amir was reminded of his American identity. Through the
character of Amir, there has been a complex nature of intermingling of the nationalist
contradictions. There has also been a portrayal of the theme of anti – black racism all throughout
the play with the portrayal of Amir Kapur as the savage black man, who sought to violence,
contradicting his own religion (Akhtar).

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The Nether has been a play by Jennifer Haley where the author or the playwright has
explicitly dealt with the play of ideas. The play actually has been crafted with the concept of the
near- future world that has been left barren alone. It suffers from a series of existential crisis
where the environment has been tortured to being dysfunctional. In this context, there has been a
representation of the virtual existence, which is not much different from the reality. There has
been a transformation of the Internet into this realm which had been called “The Nether” by all
the citizens and the people (Haley). Being attractive and alluring the people begin to spend more
time in this virtual reality, not knowing the consequences of it. The people tend to spend most of
their time in this internet and its trap because it has made them lose their ability to distinguish
between the reality, the flashy images of it and the virtual world. Thus the internet moves beyond
being a socially healthy outlet for the humans and starts being a world of oppression which ahs
been portrayed by the playwright in his novel. The Nether ends up being a dark web for the
citizens and the humans and its effect tends to take them away from the good, pushing them
towards their evil (Haley).
In the play “The Nether”, the playwright Haley, effectively indulges into the ethical
considerations of the virtual reality and the impacts that the technology has on human
relationships, as well as their individual identities. This is evident from the book which stated
that “What are you afraid of? Violence? Porn? Did you know porn drives technology? The first
photographs? Porn. The first movies? Porn. The most popular content when the Nether was
called the Internet? Porn. The urge, Detective - the urge - as long as we are sentient, you will
never stamp that out” (Haley). This shows that the presence of the human kind on the virtual
platform is has a strong influence on the shaping of their personalities and on the consequent
relationship that they established with another individual of the society.

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The play begins with the character of Detective Morris, in an interrogative session with a
person called Sins, who had been using the Nether to disturb the young girls and procure them
for the other interested men so that they can be sexually and romantically exploited (Haley).
Eventually he ends up creating an institution which he named Hideaway which had been a place
where the immoral and unethical men can perform and satisfy their sexual fantasies with the
children, and safeguard themselves from being caught out in the open. The character of Sims
here is extremely duplicate and in the journey creates a new persona of himself (Haley). The
audience get to know throughout the play that the character of Sins is actually illegal. However,
he considers his act to be perfectly legal when he reveals his secretive house that is hidden in the
Nether. Sims uses the advance technology to create detailed simulacrums of children which can
be enjoyed by the other people and violated sexually. He feels that this act of his is not at all
wrong and should be permitted because through this, no one actually gets hurt. He claims that the
dismembered bodies are just holograms and he makes Morris understand that it is just a game
where the children are not small but are adults. Through this, he actually refuses to accept the
fact that Morris tells him, that through this game of sexual violence, he actually facilitates a
divide between the human relationships virtually which is harmful (Haley).
Similar to the character of Amir Kapur in the play Disgraced, the character of Sins is
actually the depiction of the true humanity. Both of the characters are dark and they actually
enjoy being violent and unethical. Being it having a rift with his wife, or hitting her in the play
Disgraced or being involved in an unethical sexual game of violence, both the characters of Amir
and Sins represent the impulse of the human nature that asks them to perform in the most
gruesome manner. Sins actually encourages the people to join in the virtual violence by defying
the authority. Through the character of Morris, the playwright Jennifer Haley actually poses a

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question to the audience that where the pervert nature of the people, or the violence which is
actually not real, should be policed in real life (Haley). The author ends up making an open
ended situation for the public, where they can actually think about the relationship between the
real world and the virtual imaginary world and where they can imagine about the future of
Nether which has lot number of bodies suspended in the act of violence.
Moreover, there also has been a portrayal of a duplicate character of Morris. When the
play opens, the audience actually view inspector Morris as a person who tries to save the
children from the shackles of violence (Haley). However as the play unfolds, they find him to be
a potential villain herself. She ends up detaining Sins without any charge, and commits
infractions towards the individual rights and the civil rights of Sins. Moreover, she also is seen to
threaten Sins that she would take away his livelihood, and ends up not providing him with a legal
counsel. Also she claims herself to be the representative of the investigative unity of the virtual
reality of Nether. Through the character of Morris, the author paints the character of role playing,
where she is portrayed as a person who considers herself to be the sole authoritative unit of the
entire planet. She takes the control of everyone’s thoughts along with their existence and their
desires. In this manner, the playwright has created the concept of Dark Web where there should
be no authority over one’s own imagination.

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Works Cited:
Akhtar, Ayad. Disgraced. Little, Brown and Co., 2013.
Haley, Jennifer. The Nether. Northwestern UP, 2014.