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April 17, 2006
"Is Utopia Obsolete?"
This article was very interesting and it brought up alot of good points. The author suggests that Diamond Age society is more of a hybrid of utopia if anything. There are the Victorians in this book and then there are the ways that the first Victorians raised their children. It was so much more refined and strict. Children were not usually running the streets almost wild and neglected as Nell and Bud are in the Diamond Age. Nell seems to grow into the model of a Victorian upbringing when she becomes more and more educated and learns how to become a high-standing member of this society. I believe she wouldn't have the vast education if she grew up in the first Victorian age, but she may have been safer. I liked how the Primer had the potential to save many young girls in the Diamond Age. Without education, even today we would'nt have half as many opportunities as we do. We may not have Utopia, but if we keep learning, it may not seem so obsolete.
Posted by ErinWaite at April 17, 2006 11:04 AM
Comments
Good points, Erin. While upperclass Victorians certainly brought their children up in save havens (the Victorians really invented today's concept of childhood as a magical time that should be protected), there would have been orphans, paperboys, matchgirls, and various lowerclass urchins running wild through the streets of London. At any rate, literary authors used the proper folk's fear of the uncontrolled streets to sell books.
In the Dickens book, The Old Curiosity Shop, a character named "Little Nell" escapes with her grandfather from an evil creditor in London into the countryside. After many adventures, she brings her grandfather to safety, and has a sentimental, melodramatic death.
Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz at April 17, 2006 11:58 AM
I guess Stephenson was trying to give credit to the original Victorians and I liked that. Nell is really defining who she is as the book goes on. She seems to be breaking both stereotypes. She is not low-class like her mother or a stuck-up "Vicky." She is really becoming her own person through her adventures and I admire that.
Posted by: Erin Waite at April 18, 2006 08:49 PM