Chat Room (novel)

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Chat Room
Author Barbara Biggs
Country Australia
Language English
Genre(s) Thriller novel
Publisher Micklind Enterprises
Publication date 31 January 2006
Media type Print (Paperback)
Pages 120 pp
ISBN ISBN 0-977-51120-0

Chat Room is a thriller novel that was published in Australia in 2006. It is the most recent work from Australian author Barbara Biggs.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

The story is centred around the life of Sam, a 13 year old girl who moves from Sydney to Melbourne Australia, leaving all her friends behind simply because her parents were able to get higher paid jobs. Though her new house is huge, and her parents are spending lots of money on a professional ice-skating couch for Sam, she is largely miserable in her new home.

With her general feelings of isolation and estrangement from her parents, Sam turns to internet chat rooms for company and stimulation. Most of the people she meets are weirdos, but she makes a few online friends, including the smart and sensitive “ChatMan”.

For a while, ChatMan is just one of many of Sam's friends. He says he is 17 years old and he really seems to understand what Sam is going through. He listens to he and gives her encouragement and advice. Ultimately they build a pretty close 'virtual relationship', and as Sam feels more and more alone i the world, the more she needs to chat with ChatMan. But when Sam suggests they meet, ChatMan breaks the news that he is not 17 years old, rather he is 27.

At first Sam is confused and angry about ChatMan's deception, but she empathises with his reasons for lying, and ultimately she feels he is the only person to understand her. What Sam doesn't know is that ChatMan is a paedophile who has been 'grooming' her for many weeks in a manipulative plot, the purpose of which is to ultimately develop a sexual relationship with Sam.

ChatMan's horrendous plan is discovered at the last minute by Sam's babysitter, Erica. The Police are informed and Sam is saved at the last minute.

  • Initial Situation – Sam, 13 years old, moves from Sydney to Melbourne and has trouble making friends.
  • Problem – Parents are hardly ever there for Sam and have hired a babysitter, Erica, to take care of her. She turns to the internet for company and support, and engages in conversation with some very suspicious people, in particular a paedophile named Chatman.
  • Rising Action - Erica finds Sam’s ice skates at home when she was supposed to be at her skating lesson. She then discovers Sam has left to meet up with Chatman.
  • Climax – Erica calls the police, and the search is on for Sam.
  • Falling Action – The police finally find Sam and she is saved before anything extremely bad happened.

[edit] Characters

  • Sam Gibson – Sam is the first character we are introduced to in Chatman. She is a thirteen-year-old girl who has just moved from Sydney to Melbourne and is the main protagonist in the story. Sam has trouble making friends at her new school, and that coupled with the absence of her parents due to their busy work leaves her lonely. Despite this, she believes that she is old enough to be left home alone after school, and so argues furiously against getting a babysitter. It is her suspicion that her parents have been trying to bribe her by buying her a new computer and ice skates; ice skating being a passion of Sam’s. Sam starts to use the computer excessively, going into chat rooms where she meets Forestelf, CatEmpireDude, HellCat and Chatman (see Chatman/Robin Higgins). The contempt of having a babysitter makes it hard for Erica (see Erica Blatt) to get to know Sam, and may be the reason Chatman got so far into manipulating her. The turning point where Sam and Erica begin to get along though is at Sam’s ice skating competition, which Erica has been asked to attend by Sam’s parents. Sam is grateful that Erica has come to see her, seeing as her parents are unable to because of a wedding they have to attend in Sydney, and Erica is impressed by Sam’s talent. From then on in the two are more friendly towards each other, and this almost prompts Sam into telling Erica about Chatman, alerting Erica that something is going on and finally results in Erica saving the day.
  • Erica Blatt - Erica is a twenty one year old university student, and is the second point of view we see from in the book. She enters the story right after she had lost her job at a restaurant she is working at and is looking for a new one. Erica is uncomfortable hanging around this big impressive house several times a week, and is also not sure what to do with Sam. After several attempts to get to know her, she eventually gives up and leaves her alone. During the book several pressures in Erica’s life are brought to our attention including the constant deadlines presented by her Graphic Design class in university, and complications with her relationship with her boyfriend, Jack (see Jack). The annoyance in not having a working computer is repeated several times as she has to complete assignments on Sam’s, and the doubt about the direction her course is taking her. With Erica we have the story being told in a slightly different way, with different problems than we see with Sam.
  • Alistair Gibson – Alistair Gibson is Sam’s father, and is the reason for the move from Sydney to Melbourne. He works in IT for a chemical company and has the same hectic work life as Carole. Though he is away just as much as Carole, Alistair seems to get along with Sam a lot better, and is better at getting information out of her than Carole is. Though he does seem to be more easy going, Alistair does in where to put his foot down, for example when Sam is arguing against a babysitter and when her homework starts to slip in school.
  • Carole Gibson – Carole is Sam’s mother, and has a job in Events Management. Having a very busy work life prevents her from being with her daughter as much as she’d want, and compensates by making sure Sam has the very best. Carole is always trying to form a ‘mother daughter’ relationship with Sam but, in Sam’s eyes, tries to hard and then forgets to listen, making the pair distant.It is also mentioned in the book that Carole and Alistair fight a lot, but doesn’t seem to be bad enough to affect their marriage.
  • Ma/Mrs Blatt - Only mentioned as Ma in the book, Mrs Blatt is Erica’s mum, and is a single mother after losing her husband in a car accident fourteen years previous. At the beginning of the story she is a nursing aid at a hospital, but throughout the book decides to earn her Aged Care Certificate. Not much else is known about her except that she never got over the death of her husband.
  • Chatman/Robin Higgins - Chatman, or Robin as his name is later revealed to be, is the ‘villain’ in the book. He is a twenty seven year old man posing as a seventeen year old and is a known online predator with the police. Chatman’s perspective is shown several times in the book, written in italics, and gives us an insight into what he is thinking. It shows us that he is a creepy guy with ulterior motives and not the nice guy image that he projects to Sam. Though it is clear to the reader what is happening with Chatman, Sam is oblivious to his tactics, showing us how easy it is for us to be manipulated, and how you can never know who you are talking to online.
  • Billy – Billy is Sam’s skating coach and is a nice guy, though a very tough coach. He is described as short and is about thirty.
  • James (Jimbo) Blatt – James is Erica’s fourteen-year-old brother and is into soccer. Erica goes to him when she is worried about Sam’s conversations with Chatman.
  • Jack - Jack is Erica’s boyfriend and is described as a romantic. He wants to be a writer and is constantly quoting Shakespeare. Their relationship is tested when Jack is offered a job with the Bell Shakespeare Company and is presented with the possibility of moving out of Melbourne. After much deliberation he decides to take the job, but promises he will be true to Erica his ‘truelove’.
  • Aunty Ruby - Sam’s aunt who is only mentioned once. She is pregnant and her wedding is the reason Sam’s parents miss the skating recital.


[edit] Narrative

The narrative is multiple first person—Sam, Erica and ChatMan are all narrators within the text. The multiple first person narrative suits the story for several key reasons:

  • It allows the reader to get more emotionally involved in the lives of both Sam and Erica.
  • It allows the story to be viewed from different points of view.
  • It makes ChatMan's thoughts and intentions overt, which gives the vileness of his plans greater impact on the reader.
  • Overall, it gives the text greater emotional pull. This is important in a text that deals with such an important issue. A Third person narrative would be too distant and aloof, and a single first person would not allow the reader access into the minds of those around the core narrator, nor the paedophile who stalks her.

The narrative presents the events of the story in chronological order.

[edit] Values & Attitudes

  • Seeking Love: Sam was persuaded by poems, untrue feelings, and lies that were written by a complete stranger. She was so desperate to find someone to love and have a relationship with that she believed everything that Chatman wrote. She felt secure talking to him. She was completely honest and trusted him. She thought she was falling in love, but really the things she felt weren’t real. She just wanted a relationship so bad that she made herself believe Chatman was “the one.”
  • Family: There is a lack of communication in Sam’s family. Her parents are never at home and she is lacking support and confidence with all of the time she is spending by herself. In order to get the attention she doesn’t get from her family she turns to the internet chatrooms. That’s when the problems start.

[edit] Social Issues

  • Self-Esteem: A realistic respect for or favourable impression of oneself; self-respect.Self-Esteem is a big issue in today’s modern society among teenage girls. Many girls feel that they are expected to act and look a certain way in order to feel good about themselves. In the Novel 'ChatRoom' Sam, a young teenage girl has very low self-esteem, has just moved from Sydney to Melbourne. At her new school she has no friends and her parents are never around, so she has no one to talk to. The result is low self-esteem.
  • Family Communication: In the book chatroom there is a big issue on family communication; Sam isn’t communicating with her parents about how she feels about them working long hours. If there’s no communication then there is no understanding of each others feelings. With no communication between sam and here parents sam finds herself lost and turns to the wrong people like ChatMan for advice and companionship. Sam’s parents think that if they have a babysitter than Sam won’t feel so lonely, but really it’s just to help them not feel so bad about not being there for her. Sam needs guidance and boundaries from her parents so she has some kind of pathway to follow to know right from wrong; this is definitely not a babysitter’s job.
  • Net protection: There are a lot of sites on the Internet that aren’t really for children. Most of them have warnings and such but sometimes they don’t. Net protection for things such as chat rooms is usually down to the person chatting, if they are smart enough to know not to put out personal details and information that could lead predators into their life, as this book discusses. Some chat rooms have discussion warnings about which topics are usually discussed in certain rooms, but often these warnings aren’t around. Viruses and hackers can get into your computers more easily if you do not have any protection like AVG or Norton Anti Virus. But most of the protection is down to the user of the computer. In chat rooms you can chat to anyone, and never know who they really are, Sam like many other teenagers gave away a lot of personal details unaware of the damage it really does. More people should become aware of the dangers that the Internet brings but so few really are or really care. More warnings should be posted on such sites as my space, warning children about what might happen if they put up their details and make their sites public.
  • Stranger Danger: On the net stranger danger is one of the biggest issues, heck I could go into a chat room right now and say I’m a 5”10 blonde swim suit model and people would probably believe me… ok well I think someone may believe me. Any way the point is know one knows who anyone really and truly is unless of course they know him or her in person. Really you should only talk to people that you’ve met in real life. The danger that you actually go and meet up with someone who is not who they say they are is very high. They may be the nicest people in the world on the Internet but in real life have very serious motives like that of ‘Chat Man’ In Barbra Biggs book Chat Room. In real life, what do parents usually tell their children? Don’t take candy from strangers? Don’t talk to strangers period. It’s the same sort of thing on the Internet. Just because you can’t see them doesn’t make the danger any less real.
  • Privacy: Privacy is an important issue that all families will discuss at one point in time. Everyone likes to have some amount of privacy in their life, some people keep diaries where all their thoughts and secrets are kept. Privacy on the Internet is really up to the user of the computer, they can switch their certain websites to being a private or public site, such as my space.In Chat Room Sam Gibson has her own computer in her room. This computer is similar to a diary. To Sam it’s her private domain. When she thought that Erica had been snooping around on her computer she became angry and scared that Erica would read the conversations she had with Chat Man. Having a computer in your room is a lot more dangerous than having a diary, for one thing people can more easily access your files and thoughts than having a diary. For privacy’s sake having a password for your account is private enough. Keeping the computer in a room where most people can access it is safer and better than having one in a room where you can shut out those around you.

[edit] Cultural Specific Language

In the book, Barbara Biggs uses AOL language to authenticate the chat conversations between ChatMan and Sam. Letters can be replaced for words and words can be shortened. There are no grammar rules in chatrooms and the quicker you can write something, the quicker your response sets in. Single letters can replace words. Examples:

  • be becomes b
  • see becomes c
  • are becomes r
  • you becomes u
  • why becomes y
  • in becomes n

Characters and punctuation are removed to shorten messages. Vowels are removed, such that the sequence of consonants remain and the word is still recognisable. For example, between becomes btwn, homework becomes hmwk, and yearbook becomes yrbk. Whole words may go astray , especially in long sentences. Punctuation may be removed; only question mark and exclamation marks are generally used. The space and capital letter is often forgotten. Other texts of slang or speech terms can be used to shorten the original words, like cos (fewer letters than because). For example: "C U sometime in the cyber sky chicklet"

[edit] Colloquial Language Examples

  • “spag bol” (p.16) – spaghetti bolognaise
  • “boyo” (p. 19) – boy (a nickname)
  • “Discombobulated” (p.21) – To throw into a state of confusion
  • “daggy” (p.41) – Unpopular
  • “gigs” (p. 8) – events
  • “Ma” (p.49) – Mother
  • “D’ya” (p.94) – Do you
  • “Kiddo” (p.134) – A young person
  • “yuppie” (p. 21) – a young, educated, city-dwelling professional