| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 外國語文研究所 === 100 === Neal Stephenson is regarded as a cyberpunk writer. Compared with other first generation cyberpunk writers’ works, Stephenson receives less discussion. Neal Stephenson represents a highly developed information society in Snow Crash. The story takes place in Los Angeles in near future. Owing to the appearance of the virus in Snow Crash, human beings’ mind is threatened by its infection and thus reveals human beings’ complicated relationships with technology. Protagonists in Snow Crash traverse between virtual and real world and try to stop the infection of the virus with their partners.
This thesis aims to explore the interaction between advanced technology and people’s lives from perspectives of economy, culture, body, and mind by the discussion of Fredric Jameson’s cultural logic of late capitalism and Donna Haraway’s concept of cyborg. This thesis is divided into three chapters. The first chapter starts with the analysis of late capitalism and goes further to point out postmodern phenomena of commodification and depthlessness. Second chapter is based on Donna Haraway’s concept of cyborg to examine human beings’ cyborg status. Third chapter discusses how Stephenson’s cyberspace breaks the boundary between body/mind and reality/virtuality and becomes a part of lifeworld. According to Stephenson’s description of information society, we can discover that Stephenson’s portrait of advanced technology contains not only compliments but also more social and cultural concern.
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