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Hiro of the platonic: Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash"

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Date Issued:
2001
Summary:
In The Republic, Plato constructs the ideal city-state built on the principle of justice. Plato establishes an urban utopia with a set of morals through which the citizen helps the state and the state helps the citizen. Centuries after Plato's Republic, Neal Stephenson presents in Snow Crash, a cyberpunk adventure, a virtual city known as the Metaverse. Hiro Protagonist, as his name implies, defends his virtual city from a threatening virus in the same way that a citizen in Plato's Republic would protect the city-state. An analysis of Snow Crash using ideas from The Republic reveals the "hacker" to be a socially minded individual who preserves order in the cybernetic utopia that is the Metaverse. This analysis demonstrates that justice must be sought in every era, and that heroes unique to their milieu pursuit justice.
Title: Hiro of the platonic: Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash".
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Name(s): Boehm, Carl John
Florida Atlantic University, Degree Grantor
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Department of English
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Issuance: monographic
Date Issued: 2001
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Place of Publication: Boca Raton, Fla.
Physical Form: application/pdf
Extent: 77 p.
Language(s): English
Summary: In The Republic, Plato constructs the ideal city-state built on the principle of justice. Plato establishes an urban utopia with a set of morals through which the citizen helps the state and the state helps the citizen. Centuries after Plato's Republic, Neal Stephenson presents in Snow Crash, a cyberpunk adventure, a virtual city known as the Metaverse. Hiro Protagonist, as his name implies, defends his virtual city from a threatening virus in the same way that a citizen in Plato's Republic would protect the city-state. An analysis of Snow Crash using ideas from The Republic reveals the "hacker" to be a socially minded individual who preserves order in the cybernetic utopia that is the Metaverse. This analysis demonstrates that justice must be sought in every era, and that heroes unique to their milieu pursuit justice.
Identifier: 9780493421940 (isbn), 12867 (digitool), FADT12867 (IID), fau:9741 (fedora)
Collection: FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
Note(s): Adviser: Robert A. Collins.
Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2001.
Subject(s): Literature, Modern
Literature, American
Held by: Florida Atlantic University Libraries
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12867
Sublocation: Digital Library
Use and Reproduction: Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder.
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Host Institution: FAU
Is Part of Series: Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections.