THE NEED FOR VIRTUAL ETHICS IN DAN BROWN’S DIGITAL FORTRESS: SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH Research Paper Submitted as a Partial Fullfillment of the Requirements for Getting Bachelor Degree of Education in English Department by IKA NOFI INDRIAWATI A 320 050 340 ENGLISH DEPARTMENT TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY MUHAMMADIYAH UNIVERSITY OF SURAKARTA 2009 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study Digital Fortress is the first of techno thriller novel that was written by American author, Dan Brown. Besides, he also writes the other novels such as; Angel and Demons in 2000, Deception Point in 2001, The Da Vinci Code in 2003, and The Solomon Key in 2008. Digital Fortress was published by St. Martin’s Press in 1998. The amount pages of this novel are consists of 128 chapter and 429 pages. Dan Brown is the American author of numerous bestselling novels. He was born on June 22, 1964 in New Hampshire, United States. In 1986, he was graduated from Philips Exeter Academy and Amherst College with double major in Spanish and English, then, he spent time as an English teacher before turning his efforts fully to write until now. Digital Fortress tells about Susan Fletcher who is brilliant mathematician and works in National Security Agency (NSA). NSA is secret intelligence agency of United States which is responsible for collecting and analyzing the foreign communication and protecting United States government communication, which involves a significant amount of cryptography. The NSA has recently been directed to help monitor United States federal agency computer networks to protect them against attacks. Here, Ms. Fletcher works as the head of NSA cryptography division. It is a part of her job to save the code breaking machine of NSA. Once upon time, Ms. 1 2 Fletcher finds unbreakable code named “Digital Fortress” that TRANSLTR machine cannot break. TRANSLTR is the NSA’s supercomputer or description computer that is capable of breaking any code in a short amount of time. The code of Digital Fortress was written by Japanese cryptographer, Ensei Tankado. He is a fired employee of the NSA who is displeased with the agency’s instruction into people’s privacy. He threats NSA that he will post a copy of Digital Fortress on his website and asked his accomplice “the North Dakota” that will release the key word for free if Ensei Tankado dies. Tankado was found dead in Seville, Spain. This condition is very dangerous, not only for the future of Susan Fletcher’s agency but it would be cripple for the United States intelligence, because every people in around the world, especially the criminal organization (terrorist) can access the databank and open all the secret data from her country, United States. In the novel Digital Fortress, Dan Brown creates Susan Fletcher as the major character. Brown develops the personality of woman. Susan Fletcher is the female protagonist. She is a head of cryptography divisions in NSA who finds herself unbreakable code and feels that this code is very dangerous and will threat her country. As protagonist, Fletcher must overcome the novel’s major obstacle, which is to break the secret keyword that has been made by ex-employee of NSA, Ensei Tankado. Ms. Fletcher who is helped by her fiancé David Becker and her team must find a solution to stop the spread of the code. This duty was done not only for protecting the national security, but 3 also to protect the individual’s right to privacy because every people need virtual ethics in their lives, especially in cyber world. There are many responses on Digital Fortress novel, in pros and contras. The data of reader responses shows that most of the readers like this novel, it can be seen such as in amazon.com. Besides, there was someone suggests that Digital Fortress is interesting story because the writer involves a lot of technology and deals with some of the current issues like privacy, government, and technology (Priyankvira, 2006). Eli, comments on January 30, 2005, said that this novel will guarantee to capture the reader’s interest even if they are not computer enthusiast, because the writer made the story easy to be understood by the readers although it has close relation with encryption techniques. She also said that it has a good story with a lot of twist and intrigues. Some characters are clueless who are their allies or foes, which adds up to the mystery of the story (Eli, 2005). The other comments was come from Chris on September 24, 2008, who said that Dan Brown has done a fantastic job of writing about techno thriller, he can mix a technological aspects in modern literature (Chris, 2008). Not only the good comments, but also they are critics this novel. They think that this novel had a great deal of repetition of certain phrase and words. They think it could have been shorter and just as effective to make the readers not to boring when reading this novel. There was someone said that this novel has weak characters, because uses very short chapters. Some of them are half page long and while for the most of the book it is rather annoying (Adult, 4 2004). The other comments also came from lifeloom.com, it shows that most of the people who did not like the novel argued that it is amateurishly written, but most complain about the logical and mathematical errors. Based on the rating of this novel in www.amazon.com, this novel is popular enough. It is proven by the selling of this novel and being the America’s 1 best selling, although this is the first Dan Brown literary work. This novel has been translated into more than 25 languages, including Indonesian languages and many people like Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress novel. There are many fascinating aspects of Digital Fortress novel. First, this novel not only entertains but also offers the readers knowledge in the form of information, such as technology. Besides, the story of these novel is very interesting, because the author gets success for mixing the technology aspect in literature work and makes the situation in this novel become clearly delineated, although it is the techno thriller novel. Second, the story of Digital Fortress, the major character, Susan Fletcher shows her responsibility to solve the solution for breaking the keyword of Digital Fortress code. She also uncovers the astounding truth about the NSA’s deputy director, Trevor Strathmore who wants to expose the code to the world. Third, this novel has something that very interesting to be discussed, it is about the controversial issues of national security and civil rights and privacy from government. Four, this novel tells about a lesson life of women with her fiancé and her team effort for fighting to save their country and to protect something that very 5 important, that is about the civil right to privacy. The last of fascination aspect of this novel describes about need for virtual ethics for people, because the developing of era make people easy to get information of the world, so as a freedom human it is very important and should be fought. The need for virtual ethics in Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress novel is one aspect which is interesting. If we read this novel, we can see that he also wants to discuss about it. Virtual ethics here, means that every human need to get civil right to privacy, although every people can access the data from around the world, they also should give appreciate for others to have area of privacy. These reflected in the sociologist studies in one or more specialities, such as social organization, social stratification, ethnic relations, education, etc. Dealing with literature, sociology then reflects the way of literature interacts with society and there is a close relationship between literature and sociology. The relationship between literature and society in generally is unlimited and it requires a theory of history and society. Especially, sociological itself explain the particular social structures to find expression in individual literary works and what functions these works perform in society. Shortly talking Digital Fortress is very interesting, in order to know the need for virtual ethics in this novel, the writer applies sociological approach. In this study the writer encourages herself to give a title: “The Need for Virtual Ethics in Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress: Sociological Approach”. 6 B. Literature Review The writer chooses Digital Fortress novel is very interesting to be analyzed. As long as the writer knows, there is no researcher has been analyzed Digital Fortress novel, especially in Muhammadiyah University of Surakarta and Sebelas Maret University, but after browsing in the internet the writer found there is a researcher that conducted the study of Digital Fortress novel. In Reni Hikmawati’s blogspot, the writer found that she discusses Digital fortress novel with sociological approach, too. The research paper of Reni Hikmawati have entitled “White Collar Crime as Seen in Dan brown’s Digital Fortress: a Sociological Approach”. (Reni Hikmawati, 2008). It is a research done in order to find out the white collar crime of the characters, besides it also discusses about the reasons why white collar crime happens in Digital Fortress novel. Although the research used a similar approach, there is the difference between of them. In this research, the writer intends to study the sociological aspect of the novel being researched. It will be done by discovering the need for virtual ethics that is reflected in Digital Fortress novel especially concerning with American society in the late of twentieth century from sociological approach. So, both of the research have different form, it is about the subject of the research that used to analysis the research.