In Ready Player One, the main character, Wade, uses the OASIS to escape the depression and despair he would inevitably face in the real world, as shown through his mother and his aunt, but ends up needing the OASIS to find friendship and hope and, ultimately, an escape from the OASIS itself. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The Protagonist's Struggles and the Ways He Resolved Them Wade has gone through many tragedies throughout his life and would be in a position to face more without OASIS. Wade was “the only child of two teenagers, both refugees, who had met in the stacks where he grew up” (Cline 19). Stacks are a group of RVs and/or trailers stacked on top of each other. Wade's aunt owned a trailer that housed "a total of fifteen people." Wade didn't grow up with a particular family, because his mother died when she "shot a bad dose of something in her arm." He also “does not remember his father,” because “he was shot and killed while looting a grocery store during an electricity blackout.” Wade seems to be fed up with how "adults made fun of him." He has just learned of the global energy crisis and can come to no other conclusion than that "the future doesn't look too bright." All the anger and confusion he feels makes him question his previously instilled religious beliefs. He believes that "the whole God thing is actually an ancient fairy tale that people have been telling each other for thousands of years." The only escape Wade has from all this “total bullshit” is the OASIS. Wade uses the OASIS to get to a better place in life and to escape the fact that "growing up as a human being on planet Earth in the twenty-first century was a real kick in the teeth." Wade hid his OASIS in "a small open space in the back of a buried van." With cities so crowded, Wade knew he had "found something of immeasurable value: privacy." To further convey how much better he felt at the OASIS, the OASIS is "the setting of all his happiest childhood memories." After all, it was there that he met Aech, who Wade "had known Aech for a little over three years." They met in a "public Gunter chat room and hit it off right away." Aech was also a “true Halliday scholar” and “has been Wade's best friend ever since.” He also met his girlfriend on OASIS. Every time he logged on, “his mood brightened at the prospect of seeing Art3mis again.” He got to the point where he was addicted to the OASIS. Wade went to Columbus, but he had to go there in real life, so he was kicked out of the OASIS. He “forced himself to take deep breaths and tried to calm down.” Once he arrived at his apartment and logged back into the OASIS, "everything would be fine." The OASIS ends up serving a greater purpose for Wade than his original intention, freeing him from the OASIS itself. Wade discovers so much through the OASIS that he realizes that the OASIS doesn't matter. Level two of the book begins with a Groucho Marx quote: “'I'm not crazy about reality, but it's still the only place to eat decently.” This is a prediction of the rest of the book, as Wade realizes how much he needs the outside world. Wade strengthens his friendship between Aech and Art3mis during the second level by having a common enemy, Innovative Online Industries. Innovative Online Industries is a "global communications conglomerate and the world's largest Internet service provider," which, if successful, would make people pay real money for goods and services. They hired professional Sixers, “the nickname”.”.