| dc.description.abstract | Rapture: The True Galt’s Gulch is an examination of the ideals of Ayn Rand and her brand of ideology and ethics, Objectivism, by way of cross referencing her own words and works, namely those of Atlas Shrugged, with the BioShock franchise by 2K Games, something that took heavy influence from Objectivism and Atlas Shrugged in terms of its themes and story elements. The overall goal of Rapture: The True Galt’s Gulch is to determine what the series does overall to promote its evidently anti-Objectivist stance, how it does this and how well it accomplishes this agenda.
The first chapter, The World of BioShock, is to get new readers acclimated to the concept of Objectivism. This entails a short history on Ayn Rand and her written career, followed by the ideals and tenets espoused by the Objectivist philosophy. This section also touches upon the social and economic consequences these tenets would entail. The chapter places much focus on how these tenets were conceived by Rand and how she proceeded to espouse them, primarily through Atlas Shrugged.
The second chapter, Under the Sea: The City of Rapture, introduces readers, especially those who have not played BioShock or aren’t familiar with the franchise, to the franchise proper. It gives a short description about the story, using both personal experience playing the game, as well as the prequel novel, BioShock: Rapture, by John Shirley. This encompasses the visual style of the game, how the game progresses and how it ties into Objectivism and Atlas Shrugged. Topics include the series’ stand-in for Ayn Rand, Andrew Ryan and how and why he created the city of Rapture, as well as how the ideals of Objectivism tie in both directly and indirectly into the gameplay elements; such as the symbolism behind the various enemies players encounter in-game and how combat, item acquisition and the game’s iconic superpowers, aka plasmids, play a key integral roles as the antithesis to Objectivist ideals.
The third and final chapter, The failed utopia, takes what was discussed in the previous chapters and comes together to form the final conclusion to the question of how BioShock is an artistic criticism of Objectivism and how effectively it pulls this off. This chapter goes into detail pertaining to the concept of utopia and dystopia and how it correlates with BioShock, Objectivism, as well as real-world historical incidents where circumstances that conform to Objectivist modes of thinking led to problems, in particular to the working classes.
Rapture: The True Galt’s Gulch is not intended as the basis for anti-Objectivist proliferation; the primary goal of it is to evaluate the anti-Objectivist sentiments of an iconic piece of videogaming popular culture and how effectively it proposes a stronger argument against Objectivism via the use of a fictional narrative, as opposed to Rand’s pro-Objectivist argument in Atlas Shrugged. | - |