79 pages • 2 hours read
The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Chapters 16-33Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1
Chapter 16 Summary: “Hackworth in the hong of Dr. X.”
Hackworth goes to Dr. X’s hong (laboratory); Dr. X is a master reverse engineer and head of a criminal enterprise with headquarters at the Flea Circus, Middle Kingdom. While Hackworth is a “forger,” Dr. X is a “honer” (62) who puts odd bits of old technology and nanoparticles to unexpected uses. His lab includes a mix of this technology and objects associated with Dr. X’s Chinese culture. Dr. X extracts assembly instructions from the skin of Hackworth’s hand, then compiles using a feed that is not connected to Source Victoria.
Chapter 17 Summary: “Hackworth departs from Dr. X’s laboratory; further ruminations; poem from Finkle-McGraw; encounter with ruffians.”
Afterward, Hackworth heads home with the bootleg Primer, which he hopes will help Fiona succeed where he has not. Hackworth sees the wildly popular mediatronic chopsticks he made for MPS everywhere, but he gains no direct profit from them beyond his salary. Finkle-McGraw commissioned the Primer, intending to include dark and subversive literature like Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “The Raven” (1798), which would teach the children of neo-Victorian elites grit and flexible thinking. A gang of boys rob Hackworth of his top hat, his watch, and the bootleg Primer.
Chapter 18 Summary: “Miranda; how she became a ractor; her early career.”
Miranda Redpath is an aspiring ractor—an actor in ractive (interactive) media— who finally saves up enough money for the modifications she needs to succeed. She finds work in the Theatre Parnasse, although the low pay forces her to live on-site.
Chapter 19 Summary: “Harv brings Nell a present; she experiments with the Primer.”
Harv was in the gang that robbed Hackworth. He gives the Primer to Nell. When Tad, Tequila’s new boyfriend, throws the Primer at her and calls her a misogynistic slur, the book addresses Nell by the slur, apparently because it thinks this is her name. It narrates and illustrates a scene in which a villain throws a book at a little girl. The Primer opens its pages to avoid hurting Nell. From Nell’s perspective, it is a magic, talking book. Nell retreats to interact with the Primer. It generates an illustration of a finely dressed Nell and her toys. When Nell scolds her toys and puts them to bed early for disturbing Tad, the Primer tells her a story in which Nell reads bedtime stories to her children—something Tequila has never done for Nell in real life.
Chapter 20 Summary: “Nell’s first experiences with the Primer.”
The novel has two narrative voices, one for the main story and one that tells stories from the Primer. In a posh, neo-Victorian voice, the Primer begins to tell Nell a story about Princess Nell, a prisoner in the Dark Castle with only her brother, Prince Harv, and four toys as companions. It pauses the narrative to teach her to read when her questions reveal she is illiterate and too isolated to understand the story.
Chapter 21 Summary: “A young hooligan before the court of Judge Fang; the magistrate confers with his advisors; Justice is served.”
Harv is arrested for mugging and robbing Hackworth. Judge Fang, a Confucian judge of the Coastal Republic of China, Shanghai, shows mercy to Harv since he stole on behalf of Nell, demonstrating familial piety (respect for ancestors, parents, and older people in Confucianism). Nell can keep the book because it will help her in her education—also highly prized in Confucianism. The judge is constantly challenged by the need to deliver justice to barbarians (non-Chinese people) like these. Fang and his assistants Miss Pao and Chang notice something strange: The victim, whom they have identified as Hackworth, has not inquired about the book. They know he’s an MPS artifex (engineer), so they suspect he stole the Primer from work. They begin an investigation of Hackworth for intellectual property theft, a violation of the Common Economic Protocol.
Chapter 22 Summary: “Hackworth presents the Primer to Lord Finkle-McGraw.”
Hackworth hands over the original copy of the Primer to Finkle-McGraw and explains that it bonds to the first girl it encounters. It incorporates what is happening around the girl and important archetypes from world cultures to create a ractive story. It needs a ractor for its voice because human voices are still beyond it, so using the book requires an open contract for ractors. Hackworth despairs because he knows Fiona will never get a Primer now.
Chapter 23 Summary: “Nell’s second experience with the Primer; the story of Princess Nell in a nutshell.”
The Primer tells the story in short form. Princess Nell and Prince Harv are prisoners in the Dark Castle because their wicked stepmother stole the 12 keys that will free them. The princess alone escapes and acquires the keys. When she returns, the prince refuses to leave the Dark Castle and dies in battle with his sister. The princess’s tears turn the castle into a paradise over which she rules as queen. The queen marries and sets out on adventures. When Nell queries the Primer to find out what an adventure is, it shows her illustrations of a princess—one who looks like Nell—doing exciting things.
Chapter 24 Summary: “Judge Fang visits his district; Miss Pao arranges a demonstration; the case of the stolen book takes on unexpected depth.”
Judge Fang learns two book-seeking mites are at war in the Leased Territories on the outskirts of Atlantis/Shanghai. Given their respective designs, one set is from Dr. X, and another is from Hackworth. Judge Fang sends Miss Pao and Chang to make sure Nell is safe from the mites.
Chapter 25 Summary: “Description of Old Shanghai; situation of the Theatre Parnasse; Miranda occupation.”
Miranda is the point-of-view character in this chapter. She has been working at Theatre Parnasse for five years now. Carl Hollywood, the founder and manager of the theater, encourages her to continue working in Shakespearean ractives because they pay well, and she has great critical reviews. She is ambitious and wants to work in London one day. That night, she accepts a bid to ract in Nell’s Primer.
Chapter 26 Summary: “Nell’s further experiences with the Primer; the origin of Princess Nell.”
The Primer tells Nell about the origins of Princess Nell using fairy-tale tropes: A sailor rescues a secret prince and princess and takes them home to his wife. The wife dies, and the sailor marries a wicked, witchy stepmother from the Land Beyond. When the sailor is lost at sea, the stepmother forces the children to dig up their birthright, a treasure with 12 keys to the Dark Castle, infested with child-eating trolls. She locks them inside the castle gates. Nell interrupts the Primer to point out logical inconsistencies. She stops reading and cries after the prince and princess end up inside the castle gates. The Primer entices her to listen again by showing Nell two pictures—one of Princess Nell surrounded by her companions and another of Nell herself with her four toys. The Primer begins telling Nell the story of how Princess Nell found these companions in a dark place.
Chapter 27 Summary: “Judge Fang pays a visit to the Celestial Kingdom; tea served in an ancient setting; a ‘chance’ encounter with Dr. X.”
Judge Fang learns that Dr. X is seeking information about him. Dr. X lives in the Shanghai quarter called the Middle Kingdom. As the man behind many of the crimes in the Middle Kingdom, Dr. X is very powerful and should not be trifled with. Fang goes to the tea house favored by Dr. X. Dr. X shows up shortly after, as if by chance, and the two men exchange careful pleasantries. The meeting ends when Fang is supposedly called away to attend to his court. With all this indirection, Fang has effectively let Dr. X know he is aware of Dr. X’s scheme to get the Primer.
Chapter 28 Summary: “Hackworth receives an unexpected visit from Inspector Chang.”
Chang visits Hackworth in Atlantis/Shanghai clave under the pretense that he is returning Hackworth’s hat and wants a bribe to make the investigation go away. Hackworth thinks he is smarter than Chang and assumes that Chang is corrupt. When Hackworth agrees to pay a bribe—a strange choice for an actual crime victim—Chang has his proof that Hackworth is a criminal.
Chapter 29 Summary: “Miranda takes an interest in an anonymous client.”
Miranda realizes that she has spent a lot of lucrative hours being the voice for the complicated ractive storybook (the Primer, it turns out). The sessions with the Primer sometimes go on all day because the reader, clearly a girl with very rich parents, is likely neglected. The sessions are also long because the girl frequently interrupts the Primer to ask questions and the Primer digresses to teach the girl to read. The contract pays well, so Miranda checks the box on her contract to work long-term with the Primer.
Chapter 30 Summary: “Further experiences with the Primer; Princess Nell and Harv in the Dark Castle.”
In the Primer, Princess Nell and Prince Harv use fires to scare the trolls away. Prince Harv leaves Princess Nell during the day to gather kindling. The Primer uses an interactive, self-guided lesson to teach Nell and the Princess what kindling is. One day, the princess discovers a dinosaur, a rabbit, a duck, and a doll with purple yarn for hair in a cave. They are toys. They come alive that night when the children barricade themselves in a castle room. The toys were cursed by an evil sorceress from the Land Beyond to be alive only at night. The toys become Princess Nell’s “night friends” and her loyal subjects (115). Dinosaur, a fighter and protector, destroys all the trolls.
Chapter 31 Summary: “The torture chamber of Judge Fang; a barbarian is interrogated; dark events in the interior of China; an unignorable summons from Dr. X.”
Judge Fang interrogates PhyrePhox, a smug member of the anarchic phyle CryptNet. Fang caught PhyrePhox smuggling Han baby girls from the interior of China. Some of the girls live in an apartment rented by the Fists of Righteous Harmony, a new phyle. PhyrePhox claims he was just being helpful. The Fists are not small-time criminals and child traffickers; they are fomenting “dynastic rebellion” (120). Fang reminds PhyrePhox that the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 began the last time Westerners were rumored to be kidnapping Chinese girls. Those Fists killed or kicked out all foreigners. The interrogation ends when Fang receives an art-quality scroll written in Dr. X’s own hand. The quality of the calligraphy and paper communicate a clear message: Fang has a duty to his ancestors. The scroll is a beautiful text and object, but it is also an expression of great power.
Chapter 32 Summary: “A domestic scene; Nell’s visit to the playroom; misbehavior of the other children; the Primer displays new capabilities; Dinosaur tells a story.”
Tad, Tequila’s latest bad boyfriend, throws Nell and her book out of the apartment. Nell goes to the apartment block’s playroom. The children in the playroom bully Nell by playing keep-away with the Primer until the Primer shocks them. Nell begins reading once more. Dinosaur tells the princess how he survived the Great Extinction by being declared King Dinosaur. He had to win several trials using his wits instead of violence and his size. He won the last trial, one against the great warrior and sensei Dojo, a mouse, by besting the mouse at tic-tac-toe. He ate the other dinosaurs who wanted to be king and went to study under Dojo. Dinosaur ends his tale and promises to teach Nell all he learned in the cave of Dojo.
Chapter 33 Summary: “Judge Fang goes for a dinner cruise with a Mandarin; they visit a mysterious ship; a startling discovery; a trap is sprung.”
Judge Fang visits Dr. X, who reveals he has rescued a quarter of a million baby girls from infanticide in the Chinese interior. Dr. X shows him a film of desperate couples leaving their girl children to die over the many years of Chinese history. Fang concludes that Dr. X’s actions are illegal in the Chinese Coastal Republic but virtuous in Confucian terms. Fang asks to join the Celestial Kingdom, Dr. X’s true phyle, and to direct the care of the girls. The first problem is their education. Since Fang has already given the Primer to Nell because it was “better for society that the girl is educated than that she remain ignorant” (137), Dr. X suggests that Fang should dare even more to educate these “little mice” (141). They need Hackworth’s help.
Part 1, Chapters 16-33 Analysis
Stephenson continues his exploration of culture, technology, and imperialism by showing the ripples of consequences that emerge from Hackworth’s commissioning of the bootleg Primer. These consequences include a developing contest of cultures among the neo-Victorians, the Celestial Kingdom, and (tangentially) CryptNet. Confucian characters are central to these chapters.
Stephenson introduced the concept of Confucian justice—associated with Chinese culture—in the previous section, when Bud was put to death. With the introduction of Judge Fang and courtroom scenes, Stephenson is able to explore these values in more depth, especially in terms of how a modern Confucian system determines what society owes to the underclass.
Stephenson sets up a contrast between how Hackworth thinks about responsibility to others and how Fang and Dr. X think about this same responsibility. Hackworth is most concerned with moving from what is likely the striving middle class to the affluent class. He is driven by self-interest and love for his daughter, whom he sees as a potentially more perfect, more innovative version of himself if he can secure a Primer for her. Hackworth’s sense of the unfairness of life derives from his conception of what it means to be a good and successful neo-Victorian. There is a lot of talk about merit, discipline, reason, and decorum in neo-Victorian culture, but what allows one to advance up the ranks is wealth. Hackworth is discontent because he makes money and a salary but has no means of acquiring wealth. He experiences class envy as he sees his design, the mediatronic chopstick, everywhere. The Primer is another material object he made, but one neither he nor his daughter will benefit from. When Hackworth steals the Primer, he feels justified in doing so.
Hackworth’s ability to rationalize the theft points out contradictions in neo-Victorian culture. Theft of this sort is a subversive action that could be the making of Fiona, so in a sense, it is justified by the subversive neo-Victorian ethic that Finkle-McGraw claims is typical of neo-Victorian founders. The neo-Victorians aren’t really a meritocracy like they claim, however. It’s fine for Finkle-McGraw to sow subversion in his descendants because his economic status makes him powerful, but when Hackworth does it, it is hypocrisy and a crime against intellectual property rights—treason. The rigid hierarchical structure of the phyle is designed to reinforce the existing power structure, not to allow the best and the brightest to rise to the top. Hackworth fails to recognize this truth because he is some ways a product of neo-Victorian indoctrination. His blindness about the true nature of neo-Victorian culture makes him a naïve, inept man who knows something is wrong with this setup but can’t fix it.
Fang is another earnest believer in the values of his phyle and his country or state. In his courtroom in the Chinese Coastal Republic, he hands out rough justice, but only after trying to figure out how to do so in a way that honors Confucian precepts. Following those precepts ultimately makes him a better caretaker of members of the underclass—Harv and Nell, initially—than the neo-Victorians. Harv avoids the fate of Bud because Fang recognizes his actions as familial piety. He lets Nell keep the book—changing the course of her life—because he recognizes the value of education. It isn’t just about protecting economic interests and intellectual property for him. His interactions with Dr. X show the importance of this cultural context.
By all rights, Fang, an incorruptible judge, should want nothing to do with Dr. X, whom is both a crook and a wise Mandarin, but Dr. X also has a subtle understanding of Confucian ethics in a world changed by nanotechnology. Stephenson places markers of Dr. X’s grounding in Confucian ethics all over this and previous sections. On the other hand, his hong (laboratory) includes scavenged tools and nanosites. The scroll he sends Fang is a material object like the Primer, but it is one whose value isn’t just financial. These material objects are markers of his Confucian values, but his incorporation of nanotechnology shows that he is pragmatic and creative enough to adapt.
The impact of Dr. X’s agile movement between Mandarin and criminal overlord is substantial. He is indeed a criminal, but he also apparently provides employment for people like Harv. His rescue of the baby girls is probably not a self-interested financial decision, because taking care of such a large number of infants could be ruinous and logistically difficult even in the materially rich Diamond Age. The actions of both Dr. X and Fang, lucrative or not, are governed by principles that are focused less on the individual and more on the group and the good of society. Dr. X and Fang are operating in a corrupt and unfair world, but they seem to work toward making this world better in certain ways.
Focusing on the greater good is not to be confused with naivete, however. Fang and Dr. X are subtle thinkers, and part of the good Dr. X manages to achieve is because he knows the legal and illicit sides of the nanotechnology. Unlike Hackworth, both men think through the wider effects of their actions. Stephenson inserts some historical context to show the power and peril of the philosophy that motivates the decisions of the Confucians in the novel. On the one hand, the battles in the interior of China and the sheer number of abandoned girls show that this philosophy hasn’t protected China from the disruption caused by nanotechnology. On the other hand, Fang and Dr. X quickly apprehend that the Primer might be the answer to their problem of how to educate girls. Their ethics might be adaptable enough—more so than neo-Victorian ethics—to restore order and virtue.
Stephenson also incorporates these competing cultural values into the stories within the Primer. The story about Dinosaur’s survival of the Great Extinction is one in which self-interest—winning and eating the other dinosaurs—is balanced by an appreciation of education and humility, as when Dinosaur humbles himself before Dojo. Over the course of these chapters, Nell’s interactions with the Primer allow her to make more and more pragmatic use of what it teaches. She reads plenty of fairy tales, but she also learns about how power works and how to defend oneself against stronger opponents. She learns the value of family from her Night Friends. The Primer seemingly has everything in it, and many of the implicit values in the stories highlight values that are at home in both New Atlantis and the Celestial Kingdom.
Unlock all 79 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Neal Stephenson
