\'Crossing Over\' the (Blurred) Lines among Reality, Virtuality, and Theatricality, A Cyberpsychoanalytical Study of the Nether by Jennifer Haley

The advancement of technology, especially the onlin e world on the internet, has brought a new dimension t the life and psychology of the people. Jennifer Haley’s play The Nether takes this fact into consideration a d employs the impact of the internet, i.e. the virtual world, in t he real or the physical world as its subject matter. This paper investigates and maps the boundaries of the worlds – real, virtua l, nd theatrical – presented in the play and exami nes their relationships with one another, and then claims that the lines between these three realities actually ov erlap with one another. With the exploration of the characters’ ps yche, this paper argues that the characters transce nd the normal boundaries of the real, the imaginary or virtual, a nd the theatrical, creating a new reality in the age of advanced technology. To ground its arguments, the paper adop ts an interdisciplinary framework to discuss the pl ay – it explains the play in the light of the cyberpsychoanalytical theo ry, an interdisciplinary study of the psychoanalyti c literary theory and cyberpsychology.