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Raquel Hudson

English 1020-LD-07

March 24, 2022

Short Paper #2

“Love and Other Catastrophes Vs. Slide To Unlock."

Introduction.

Slide to unlock is a short story written by Ed Park. The main idea of this story is to highlight

various elements of human life that, if of high secrecy, perhaps which many think can be revealed

to the outside world. It is good to mention that the short story slide to unlock by Ed Park was

written specifically to highlight the human life of secrecy that cycles through passwords around the

numbers and words that are only stored within the lining of an individual’s heart. This is symbolic

in the sense that whatever secrets one has is stored in a manner that no one could guess (Nast). The

world has numerous challenges that affect the security of our technology, and therefore, every time

now and then, Ed. Park provided that one has to be vigilant about the security of their systems such

as laptops, email accounts well, and Facebook accounts by often monitoring and assessing the

behavior of security meters to constantly change the password whenever it changes from green to

red (Holzer). On the other hand, Love and Other Catastrophes is a comedy story that was filmed in

1996 and whose content and main message revolves around a romance between two college

students. It also extends its themes to cover roommates, professors, and money where one is

expected to pay overdue library money with the intention to change or switch departments. The

main theme in this film is love and romance, where we meet two central characters who are staying

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together within the same room in the same compound. The two key characters in Love and Other

Catastrophes are Mia, whose real name is (Frances O'Connor) and a lesbian. There are

possibilities that Mia is planning to break up with her girlfriend. Another key character Alice has a

feeling of crushing with another guy but is still crushed on by another guy.

Thesis statement.

The primary focus of this report is to offer an elaborative analysis of the two plays identified in the

introduction as Slide to unlock and Love and Other Catastrophes. Major areas that will be

objectives evaluated to provide in-depth knowledge on the major themes of the stories as presented

by the authors. Both the stories begin at an appointment where the narrator is alone, and as time

goes by, things start changing. In the Slide to unlock, the narrator provides a brief history of his life

with the ability to keep on updating passwords using complex series and sequences that are

unguessable, but finally, he finds himself with a huge man with a hard and intimated to provide the

password immediately and stop stalling. Passwords is a secret that the narrator loves more than

anything else since it contains valuable information about his digital world. But finally, he ended

up sharing the same password he had protected and kept updating to keep intruders off his privacy.

Just like in Slide to unclick story, love and catastrophes begin with singles who eventually felt each

other as roommates, ended up in love, and finally broke away with all their secrets known to the

world.

Literature review.

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Upon analyzing the Slide to unlock the short story, it is evident that the author Ed Park wanted to

express various themes such as the capability of humans to store and retain the deepest secrets for

fear of compromising their security and well-being (Holzer). On the other hand, love and other

catastrophes, A mixtape by Amanda Holzer, focus on love and the good feeling one develops after

getting into a new relationship. This is portrayed by the central character Mia who is optimistic in

her new love as she expected all should be well. Things go well in the first few months after

getting a new catch, but later the story provides the reader with consequences of what may seem at

first a romantic relationship just to end with a feeling of disappointment and betrayal. Just like in

the story "unlock to unlock " although progressive keeping of secret information of passwords in

computer-based devices, the end may be catastrophic if such secrets are revealed through

intimidation coerce or intentional to malicious people like it happened at the end of the story after

the narrator was ambushed while in ATM machine with a gun.

As mentioned early, the world has changed technologically, and much is happening in

technological space. This had eroded the kind of openness people had in the traditional era when

there were minimal or no sophisticated technologies such as used home or work laptops as

provided in the Slide To unlock, the key themes are focused on highlighting the transformation

human society has realized since the introduction of new technologies. Although technologies are

worth embracing, the author warns that cyber security has been identified as a major threat to

digital devices and can affect business and people at the individual and group level. Humans

should behave like computerized machines with the ability to store and recall complex passwords

for authorization and authentication to avoid revealing vital information to intruders.

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Perhaps the author in Slide To unlock wanted to show that every human being has a secret that lies

deep in their heart. Nobody is ready to share nor reveal their secrets to anybody as this will

jeopardize their security and perhaps result in catastrophic events (Arif and Mazalek). All the

secrets referred to in the Slide To unlock story are symbolic in nature as the heart of human beings

represents digital devices with the ability to store passwords. Passwords in this aspect are symbolic

in the sense that they represent a high level of secrecy that needs to be maintained and secured

from access by intruders.

In comparison with Slide to unlock story, the film on love and other catastrophes begin with a kind

of a story narrating the life of being alone as provided in the background song ( all by myself),

more or less like keeping your secrets alone in your heart with nobody to share with as Ed Park

narrates in the short story slide to unlock. Songs such as "my girl" and "we have only just begun”

are among the songs that set in the theme of love, romance, and relationship that is about to begin

in love and other catastrophes by Amanda. Love is something that is cherished by many, just like

Mia is doing in the film (Arif and Mazalek ). Later the middle story changed, and what seemed a

better beginning took a new turn as elaborated by the songs such as "where did you sleep last

night" and along with songs like " Your cheatin heart" this a sign of a relationship that is getting

colder and soar day by after each of the parties has shared intimacy and love secrets. Finally,

everyone parts her own ways, an aspect that means in every situation, human beings begin their

journey alone and end up alone, just like it happened to Mia and her partner in the film love and

catastrophes: A mixtape.

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Conclusion.

Slide to unlock and love catastrophes are two different stories, but the themes portrayed in either

case can be compared and identified as more or less the same. While in Slide to unlock, the

narrator is in love with the password that is kept and stored in the deepest of the heart, in love and

catastrophes: a mixtape, Mia is in love with her roommate, shares love and secrets but finally parts

ways.

Works Cited

Arif, A., and A. Marszalek. "Slide-to-Unlock revisited: Two new user authentication

techniques for touchscreen-based smartphones." Proceedings of the 11th International

Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking and Services, 2014,

doi:10.4108/icst.mobiquitous.2014.257921.

Holzer, A. "Love and Other Catastrophes: A Mix Tape." Amplified Mixtape, 14 Nov. 2009,

amplifiedmixtape.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/love-and-other-catastrophes-a-mixtape/.

Accessed 16 Mar. 2022.

Nast, C. "Slide to unlock." 3 June 2013, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/06/10/slide-to-

unlock.