Lightbox
In our modern society it has been custom to live very open and see-trough lives, putting everything on the Internet and social media. A lot of people can easily be fascinated by the lives of these social-media-celebrities, which are admired often by the thousands. But admiring can easily turn to obsession. And looking can sometimes turn to surveillance and stalking. In the short story lightboxes, the author Emma Cleary writes about the consequences of living such an open life.
The short story is written in 1. Person narrator, and we follow an unnamed man. The point of view makes him a very unreliable narrator. At the beginning the reader easily feels sympathy for the narrator, because of the way his and Elsie’s relationship I described. At first we get the impression of Elise being particularly stage-loving, always posting pictures on the social media and writing blogs. “Elsie has uploaded a picture of the berry smoothie poised artfully over the crossword puzzle.” From the narrators point of view she appears self-centred not giving any attention to the narrator or following his advises. The language is very detailed with a lot of little details one wouldn’t normally notice: “Outside, a woman selects flowers from a street vendor, picking up baby’s breath, then dahlias in the same shade of orange as the falling leaves.”…show more content… “Across the street, people cast kinetic silhouettes inside their individual lightboxes, like puppets in a thin