Lightbox by Emma Cleary
What draws the line between being a follower and a stalker on social media? In ‘Lightbox’ the readers get an insight into the life of a young woman named Elsie. The readers are led to believe that the telling protagonist and Elsie are in a relationship when suddenly the readers learn that his behavior is abnormal. Emma Cleary’s ‘Lightbox’ is a short story, which involves subjects such as privacy, voyeurism, and alienation in the age of social media. The title “Lightbox” can refer to a couple of things. It can be that we all live in our little lightbox, where it works as an anaphor for a phone, which is one of the issues I think she brings up throughout the short story. The issue revolves around that we have moved our communication from being physical, face-to-face to a not physical interaction on social media and the Internet. Because we’re social on the Internet and social media instead of an active physical communication, we’ve maybe lost some of the features that you’ll need to proper communicate with other human beings. It could also refer to something that is mentioned in the short story on page 2 “People move about in their boxes of light across the street.” What I think is the meaning behind it, is that even though we live in the same country, same town, same district, same community, the same street we create our little world where we are the only rulers, and it stands as a contrast to the outside community. I think it’s a suitable title for this short story because she talks anaphorically about the lightbox as our social media where we portray our lives. The language used by the author in ‘Lightbox’ is conversational language, as it is not very challenging to read, yet the moods of the protagonist are very coloring for the descriptions throughout the story. It is clear that for the most part, the text is free from any cursing. But when the narrator tells us about Elsie’s co-worker, it slightly changes. The narrator starts cursing when there is another man in her life. At the same time, the narrator could be angry because he had read Elsie wrong “It’s that man, that guy she works with, smartly dressed, clean-shaven, like a fucking advert for cologne.” (Page 3, Line 96-97). The author tells the story quite well because in the first few pages of the short story you’ll get an indication what happens in this short story. The most difficult thing is that the reader has to figure out that they are not in a normal relationship and the narrator is a stalker. The story also has some other themes and starts portraying some problems and issues that we all have. It’s a first person narrator, which makes the story seem more personal even though the reader probably cannot relate to the stalker narrator. If you take a starting point in Goffman’s theory, one could say that the reader is invited into the characters backstage. Almost the entire story is with Elsie’s apartment as a setting, the only places where it isn’t, is at the start where she is at a store, and the stalker is following her. The third setting is the last part of the story where he leaves the apartment and sees her at Starbucks. The dominant element in the story is the themes because you can feel the author’s opinions shine through and she wants to say something with this short story. It often is so that the stories with the most meaning behind it, is the ones who gets most recognition and Emma Cleary have got a lot of recognition for this short story. The whole story revolves around Elsie but seen through a first-person narrator. Therefore it can be a bit difficult to point out the main character. Throughout the story, it is the narrator view, which is portrayed. “I tucked my rucksack under the chair and started to eat an organic cream cheese bagel… I thought it was for vegan freaks. She is smiling. ‘It was another good session today,’ she says…I’m growing a beard, and it itches. She likes men with beards. I swear the perfect person for Elsie would look like a cartoon lumberjack.” (Page 1, line 8-10) The conflict that confronts the first person are external ones; one of the problems is that he feels excluded from their relationship as an outcome of the growing social media. The other one is that he seems to have a description of the men Elsie are attracted to and maybe he does not fit the criteria. The whole story is depicted by the first person narrator, and therefore he can do nothing wrong even if what he does is kind of creepy. The place in the story where it is most evident that the narrator is a stalker of Elsie is in this section “When we get home, Elsie takes off her coat and draws the bedroom curtains. Everyone here lives in high-rise boxes. I step out onto the balcony with a bottle of beer and lean against the barred metal railing.” (Page 1, line 11-12) It portrays that once the curtains are drawn, he is unable to describe her actions inside her apartment and starts focusing on himself at the balcony. The reason why it can be a bit tricky to find out that the narrator is a stalker, is because the reader need to rely on the narrator for information. However the story gets twisted when Elsie recognizes the narrator and says there’s that guy again to her colleague. This makes it obvious that he has been stalking her for quite a while now. This form of narrating a story is fascinating because we are so used to trusting the narrator. If it were Elsie’s story which was depicted, it would look entirely different and you can feel that the narrator has left out information. I have decided to use information from the Internet; I have chosen an article that lists up different kind of scenarios in which social media can destroy relationships “Sharing too much can be a problem. It can be easy to follow other people on social media, and therefore it can be easier for individuals who want to stalk other humans. One of the themes I think the author brings up in this short story is that social media can be damaging for social interactions. So if the narrator were a boyfriend instead you could argue that the lightbox destroys their relationship because they aren’t aware of each other. We can use this short story as a worse case scenario and just to give this topic some attention, so we get more aware of this. It is a well-written story with a plot twist, which makes it exciting to read. ‘Lightbox’ brings up some interest and relevant themes. Combined with the smart use of the narrator it is a creative piece of work from Emma Cleary.
The whole story evolves around Elsie, but seen through a first person narrator. Therefore it can be a bit difficult to point out the main character. Throughout the story it is the narrator view, which is portrayed. “I tucked my rucksack under the chair and started to eat an organic cream cheese bagel… I thought it was for vegan freaks. She is smiling. ‘It was another good session today,’ she says…I’m growing a beard and it itches. She likes men with beards. I swear the perfect person for Elsie would look like a cartoon lumberjack.” (Page 1, line 8-10) The conflict that confronts the first person are external ones; one of the problems is that he feels excluded from their relationship as an outcome of the growing social media. The other one is that he seems to have a description of the men Elsie are attracted to and maybe he does not fit the criteria. The whole story is depicted by the first person narrator and therefore he can do nothing wrong even if what he does is kind of creepy. The author handles the characterization by describing actions and thoughts. I have decided to use information from the Internet; I have chosen an article that lists up different kind of scenarios in which social media can destroy relationships. “Sharing too much can be a problem. One of my clients, Carolyn, had been working hard. One spring morning, she and her husband Thomas decided she’d call in sick to work so they could take the kids to the zoo. As she was scrolling Facebook later in the day, she saw that Thomas had posted a photo of them in front of the elephant house. She was enraged! She felt betrayed. He felt like she was overreacting — none of her work colleagues (at least not ones who’d care) are even friends on Facebook.” This is a situation the short story takes very literal, and it is one of the reasons their relationship falls apart. We can use this short story as a worse case scenario and just to give this topic some attention so we get more aware of this and it is a problem not only in loving relationships but also in friendly relationships.