In Neuromancer, William Gibson introduces us to a cybernetic world of advanced technology, romance, necromancy, and neurotic characters. The following passages of the novel allow us to get a glimpse of the high tech, necromancy and neurotic frameworks.
“‘It’s Case, man. Remember?
’‘Miami, joeboy, quick study.’
‘Know how a ROM personality matrix works?’
‘Sure, bro, it’s a firmware construct’ (78).
This is a conversation between Case and the Dixie Flatline’s construct. McCoy Pauley, also known as the Dixie Flatline, died from braindeath three times. However, a company called Sense/Net was able to save his construct. Case was then ordered to retrieve this construct. After Case retrieved the construct, he was then able to talk to the Dixie Flatline’s construct. Evidently, in this cybernetic world, death is not the end; advance technology can collect a person’s thought and intelligence for future use. With this advancement in technology, even clones and artificial intelligence like AI Wintermute were made possible.
“Drunk in Singapore, [Corto] beat a Russian engineer to death in a hotel, and set fire to his room. Next he surfaced in Thailand, as overseer of a heroin factory. Then as enforcer for a California gambling cartel, then as a paid killer in the ruins of Bonn. He robbed the bank of Wichita” (84)
In this description, Gibson illustrates the neurotic characteristics of Armitage in his previous past as Colonel Willis Corto. Although it is only a short description, we can see that Corto is a character with no respect for other lives and no senses of a normal human being. It seems as if Corto is not even a human being. Up to this point of the novel, no character is portrayed as having any sort of family members; their closest companions so far have been drugs, gadgets, and prostitutes.
The fact that neurotic characters like Case, Molly, and Armitage/Corto are put together in a cybernetic world of high technology suggests that technology is altering mankind. Nature, family, and friends are no longer crucial. In a cybernetic world, it is all about who has the better gadget or who can hack into the matrix better.
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it was hard for me to write this blog. Through the prompt "think about the framework...write 2-3 passages about it," all I could think of was, ok... this paragraph shows that Corto is neurotic and this passage shows the framework of necromancy. I didn't really know how to develop my idea. The style, the language, and the fact that I have not finished the whole book made it hard for me to understand the message of the novel/author. Thus, i feel like my blog is not structured well and thoughts seem to be running everywhere.
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