Neuromancer
Posted by admin on November 20, 2008, 9:30 pm
The floor is now open for postings on Neuromancer. Questions from the in class handouts can get your motor running!
4 Responses to “Neuromancer”
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November 20th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
I want to take some time to explore some of the issues that were brought up in class with Neuromancer, in particular the issues surrounding gender and the character of Molly. Molly is a lot like many of the other women characters we have seen this semester. She is a strong woman, and her special qualities are vital to the men overcoming obstacles. We saw this same kind of relationship in the Matrix, as well as in Bladerunner. But I think that Gibson does something very different in this novel because he explore what happens when you add violation into the equation.
When trying to unpack what happens to Molly as a “meat puppet,” as well as her violation from Riviera, there are few aspects of the idea of “woman” that may need to be explored. Molly is created and given qualities that make her appear to be a more masculine woman figure in the novel. She has eyes that are protected and blades shooting from her fingertips. These qualities allow her to be able to protect herself from men, and also allow her the option of killing someone with ease. Even though she seems to be built to destroy, she is still violated by men in this novel.
The issue of Molly being a “meat puppet” is the first example of this exploitation and violation. Though it can be assumed that Molly was willing to have sex with these men, her agency of memory was taken away from her in these situations. Her mind would be removed when these sexual encounters would take place, and men would be able to further their pleasure by being able to have heightened fantacies while having sex with her. Anyone can argue that being a prostitute is a form of exploitation, but I think it is furthered here because of Molly having no option to remember the encounters. Her mind being completely removed forces her to be just a submissive body. Her body’s only purpose is to please the man, and therefore she has no opportunity to decide what these men do to her or to stop it. She is literally reduced to a “meat puppet.”
Gibson furthers this with the scenes of Rivera implanting his dreams of raping her. When Molly was a prostitute, it was purely an exploitation of her body. Now, Rivera has invaded her on a whole new level by entering her mind, and letting other people watch this scene. Not only does Molly have no control over what Rivera imagines doing to her, she is forced to watch the events unfold with everyone else in the room. This violation is much crueler, much more sadistic. It does not matter how Molly is physically created because there is nothing she can do to stop this from happening. She becomes completely helpless.
Given these interactions between males and females in the novel, it can lead to a discussion of the intrusive and damaging nature of technology and power. By having the power to control what one sees, you have the power to do more damage then could ever be dome physically. Entering Molly’s mind, and in the case of Rivera with his own thoughts and desire, he renders her completely helpless to her own thoughts. This is the ultimate violation; controlling their mind. This destructive power Rivera has shows that even if the women is not human, she is still capable of being violated. This violation allows the reader to question further why, even in characters who are not fully human, is there still a desire to break down women, both through the body and in the mind.
November 24th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
This post continues the thread above from jcriscuo.
The first misconception is that Molly is violated or exploited by “men.” First, on a literal level, when Molly was working as a “meat puppet” (still one of the coolest phrases ever), she could be “exploited” by whomever chose her, male or female, or both at same time. It is clear from the text that Molly is engaged in snuff-like sexual activity with both men and women present. Well, in the one anecdote (page 148), the woman is dead, but she probably didn’t start that way. Men are not always the exploiters; women exploit women too.
More interesting is that in Gibson’s world of complex genetic engineering, organ transplants, and grafting the very definition of what makes a man a man or a woman a woman is not limited by the physical body. Although it is never stated, I am sure that any person could easily turn the body into a shell and become whatever “sex” he or she wants. Everyone in Gibson’s world is a hybrid of human, male or female, technology, software, etc. This explodes the typical binary of male and female; and consequently, upsets any stereotypical depiction of exploitation or violation.
But is Molly exploited and violated? Yes, Molly is a meat puppet, but does prostitution necessitate exploitation and violation? Certainly in our contemporary society, it is plausible to define the circumstances that produce prostitution (definitely not always female) as a product of a patriarchal hegemony rooted in the exploitation of women. In this context, choosing to become a prostitute, as Molly does, doesn’t really count because the cards were already stacked against the person. I don’t entirely buy this—I find it offensive actually—but I can at least accept it a plausible explication of the status quo. However, in the context of Neuromancer, I find this even more difficult to swallow, especially given that Molly is so invested in the benefits of the experience. Her memory is not “taken” from her; it is “given.” She is not forced into submission; she is merely using her body for what it is: hardware. She boots up her body, loads the software, makes some money, and reinvests that money in new hardware for the body-machine. If there is any exploitation in the novel, it is between body and machine, software and hardware, not male and female.
Molly is violated by Riviera, but not necessarily in the way described in the previous blog. Riviera doesn’t seem to have access to Molly’s mind or other’s for that matter. The tableaux he presents come from his own perception (misconception) of her and what he has been told of her. Yes, he does have the ability project images seemingly into the mind of the audience, but it appears that his audience has the power to walk away from them, as Molly does at the show. In this light, Riviera is more like an interactive billboard, alarming and disconcerting, but something that can be ignored. On a literal note, Riviera’s demonstration at the show does not really depict rape. First, he builds “Molly” from parts and then, inversely, “she” takes him apart during sex. It is difficult to call this rape, and this is further complicated if we try to call this a rape of Molly because it is only Riviera’s representation of Molly (this is still arguable). Nonetheless, the whole scene is powerful, as it was meant to be: it was to spur Molly on to pursuing Riviera into Straylight and killing him.
The real violation of Molly is when Riviera smashes her lenses with a glass. If we use the trope of the “gaze” as a substituted phallic penetration, we can see Molly’s lenses as co-opting that power and as a defense against it. The lenses work as a metaphorical defense mechanism because the penetrating gaze of men is fractured and reflected back at them. When Riviera smashes the lenses, she has truly been penetrated and made more fragile. I don’t like the word “helpless” though because she is never helpless: she had already been poisoning Riviera for some time.
December 12th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
I’d like to cover the concept of transcendence in Neuromancer. In class, it seemed like a lot of people had some difficulties grasping the idea that none of the humans in the novel permanently reach a transcendental mind state. What jarred people, I think, is the fact that Case did achieve ultimate happiness when he plugged into the Matrix. I think they thought that since Case had the option of plugging in, he had access to achieving placement into a truly spiritual state.
However, the fact that Case has to plug in and the fact that he eventually has to unplug himself, to meet basic human needs, proves that he isn’t in a PERMANANT state. Unlike Wintermute/Neuromancer who, after the unification, don’t have to DO anything to be in a sense of spirituality, Case has to depend on the accessibility to plug in. In the beginning of the novel, when his nervous system was destroyed, Case was a substance abusing, depressed suicidal being because he didn’t have this access.
Case is an addict in the truest sense of the word. He NEEDS to plug in and he is miserable when he the option isn’t right in front of him.
So, why can’t Case have a permanent plug-in? It is the constraints that he is born with, given that he is a human. Unlike, Neo in the Matrix, Case’s human nature won’t let him get past the fact that he needs to eat, breathe, have sexual relations etc. He wouldn’t be able to attain any of these so called ‘needs’ if he were permanantly in the Matrix. However, Wintermute/Neuromancer, an AI, that isn’t constrained to such human restrictions can spend all of its existence being plugged in.
December 17th, 2008 at 4:46 am
NOTE to technoromo blogworld: Please accept my apologies for diverging from our generally reader response to literature essay mode; I just jacked into the addictive impulse. What follows falls somewhere between op-ed blog and rant.
When considering the concept of transcendence, whether in Gibson’s Neuromancer, Wordsworth’s poetry, his pontifications on reconstructing reality to a more intellectually challenging standard of beauty, or certain factions of Buddhist and Yogic practice, the first step is similar to our discussions on themes such as “Reality: is it real, or is it Memorex?” A coherent understanding of the nature of transcendence is a required prelude to meaningful discussion, or at least, a consensus working definition. My P.O.V. on the discussion and comments so far concerning transcendence holds that we are jumping the gun—bypassing the primary examination of transcendence to propose how it presents in the works under discussion.
Case in point: We question whether Case is reaching transcendence since he must be plugged into the Matrix to experience what is being posed as a transcendent state. The question becomes irrelevant once the fundamental assumptions of the frame are examined. No, that is not quite true. One implication of the re-framing would not render the question irrelevant, but would make the answer self-evident within the altered context. If we look at whether “jacking in” offers a transcendent experience, or conversely, a merely addictive escape mechanism. The argument can and as been made that living is an inherently addictive experience; one such theorist, author Terence McKenna, claims, “[Humans] are addicted to breathing.” Although he makes this statement with his tongue at least nearing his cheek, he is reflecting the idea that human existence is basically addictive in nature. I would argue there is a level at which this is true, but practically speaking, there is a distinction between necessary physical requirements that sustain life and consciousness-altering practices that take on the mantle of addiction—but only through the compulsion to seek them, not through the experience itself. In this context, we can clearly see Case’s impulse for the Matrix as an addiction since he compulsively seeks the temporary escape from material existence. This fits with eabraha 1’s comments except for the comments that define Case’s experience of the Matrix as non-transcendent due to the fact they are not permanent. Which leads to the next examination of the premise involving definition and understanding of transcendence. I would like to work on the hypothesis that transcendence and enlightenment are not the same thing, that transcendence is a path to enlightenment, and, most important, that both are states of being not some static destination that one achieves and then “sits” there feeling bliss (yeah, you caught me, if each is not a place, one can’t sit there). There are some segments of Eastern mystical/spiritual practice that seem to see enlightenment as complete separation from the material plane, but the majority would agree enlightenment is an altered state of being—just as much and more connected to the rest of existence but with a different perspective and experience of that existence. States such as enlightenment and transcendence, and even addiction, are part of the continuous cycle of existence and not a static, permanent removal from the process. A couple of quotes form Eastern spiritual traditions come to mind: “Before I was enlightened, I chopped wood and carried water; now that I am enlightened, I chop wood and carry water” and the more contemporary, “After enlightenment comes the laundry” (Generally attributed as Zen proverb). Transcendence can be and is a temporary state of being, but the phrase state of being is the operative concept. So, one could experience transcendence in a number of ways and not be permanently in that exact state (although it could provide some change in perspective), but a state of enlightenment, while not a static end of existence, would be a permanent shift in perspective that would not revert to the previous unaware state. The level of awareness of one’s previous life may depend on one’s personal belief. I don’t presume there is a one true state of enlightenment any more than there is only one absolute true anything that denies the some other truth.
Well, I’ve had my say, Peace Out.