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
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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.

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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
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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,
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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
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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”.

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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.

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C. Problem Statement

Based on the title and background of the study, the writer proposed the

problem as follows: “How is the need for virtual ethics reflected in Dan

Brown’s Digital Fortress?”

D. Objective of the Study

Based on the problem statement above, the objectives of the study are

as follows:

1. To analyze the structural elements of the novel.

2. To analyze the novel based on sociological approach.

E. Limitation of the Study

To make the research appropriate with the objectives of the study, the

writer limits to the research. The writer focuses on the need for virtual ethics

reflected in Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress novel by using sociological

approach.

F. Benefit of the Study

The reason why someone makes a research is to get the benefit from it.

By so doing, the writer expects some benefits are produced from this research,

those are:
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1. Theoretical Benefit

By doing this research, the writer wants to have contribution in

criticizing a literary work and producing criticism as objective as possible.

2. Practical Benefit

This research has benefit to give deeper understanding about the

content of the play especially from the sociological approach in Dan

Brown’s Digital Fortress Novel.

G. Research Method

In this chapter, the writer divided into five subparts, namely; type of

the study, object of the study, data and data source, technique of data

collection, and technique of data analysis.

1. Type of the Study

In this study, the writer uses a descriptive qualitative research. It is

a library research while data source are using literary data. It purposes to

analyze the novel using sociological approach.

2. Object of the Study

The object of the study is Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress that is

written in 1998, published by st. Martin’s Press, New York, contains 429

pages and 128 chapters.

3. Data and Data Source

Dealing with research method, there are two points that need to be

involved as follows:
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a. Primary Data Source

The primary data source of the study is the novel entitled

Digital Fortress written by Dan Brown.

b. Secondary Data source

The secondary data are taken from other sources which are

related to the primary data that support the analysis. They are books

and virtual references.

4. Technique of Data Collection

The method of data collection in this study uses the library

research by selecting both primary and secondary data. The writer will

involve some required steps.

a. Reading Digital Fortress novel.

b. Browsing to the internet to get several information and articles related

to the object of the study.

c. Taking notes of important data from both primary and secondary data

d. Arranging the data into several parts according to its classification

e. Selecting particular parts that are considered important and relevant for

the analysis

f. Drawing conclusion based on the analysis of the data.

5. Technique of Data Analysis

The steps of analyzing the data of this research are by analyzing

the structural elements of the work and analyzing the sociological

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perspective of the work. Analyzing the data of this research is trying to

clarify the obtained data by selecting the necessary ones.

H. Research Paper Organization

This research paper is divided into six chapters. Chapter I

introduction; it deals with the background of the study, literary review,

problem of the study, limitation of the study, objective of the study, benefit of

the study, research method, paper organization. Chapter II presents underlying

theory, which contains sociology of literature, structural elements of the novel,

and theoretical application. Chapter III deliver the social historical background

of America society in the late of twentieth century with all aspects that

influence and happened. Chapter IV discusses the structural analysis; it deals

with the structural elements of the novel and discussion. Chapter V is

sociological analysis. Chapter VI presents the conclusion and suggestion. It

consists of conclusion of the research and then it proposes some suggestions.