No fancy image for this post yet. I’m trying something new.
First published: September 5, 2025 by Paul W. Romero
Preface: This was originally written from July 12, 2023 through August 1, 2023 in a series of discussion posts for my MFA Creative Writing program. I compiled them into what I hope is a coherent review.
The inciting incident occurs in chapter two around page 39 when the character Armitage offers the main character, Henry Dorsett Case, a job which pulls Case out of his normal world or comfort zone and into a new journey. Armitage makes the journey worthwhile by offering Case a new body which will fuel Case’s drug addiction and ability to jack into the matrix. Metaphorically speaking, Armitage dangles a carrot in front of Case which forces him to go on the journey. This was done well as not only is Case hesitant to leave his comfort zone, but Gibson manages to give Case a series of needs that he can’t resist which are money and his drug addiction.
Armitage supplies Case with those needs which is the perfect setup to send Case on a journey into the new world and act two of the story. The main lesson to be learned from this is the ability to give the main character something they can’t refuse, which will pull them out of their comfort zones and into a journey. Either we make the pain of change less excruciating than the pain of staying the same, or we dangle a carrot in front of the main character and make their urges stronger than their instincts. In Neuromancer, Case, goes from saying to Armitage, “I’m never gonna punch any deck again, not for you or anybody else” to “Then I’d ask what your terms were” in which we can see his transition from denying the journey to sparking curiosity (Gibson 38-39).
Either we make the pain of change less excruciating than the pain of staying the same, or we dangle a carrot in front of the main character and make their urges stronger than their instincts.
In terms of instances in my reading that I feel were influenced by some form of research on the part of the writer, the whole novel is filled with a vast amount of technology which considering the era in which it was written would have taken an extensive amount of research. This novel was published in 1984 well before the times of computers, the internet, and other technological advances that we may take for granted. Gibson would have had to done quite a bit of digging around in various places to be able to describe first off what he called the “matrix” at the time which was well before the film debuted; second, he would have had to figure out how a computer could possibly have control over society and how this would affect the members of that said society; third he would have to decide how technology could evolve over time (if it did) and what the implications would be for mankind.
I think is the general theme behind Neuromancer, is how the human psyche would affect and shape the future regarding technology. How would technology be used for better or for worse regarding human emotions and needs?
I think is the general theme behind Neuromancer, is how the human psyche would affect and shape the future regarding technology. How would technology be used for better or for worse regarding human emotions and needs? One example of a technological example is when Gibson writes, “Julius Deane was one hundred and thirty-five years old, his metabolism assiduously warped by a weekly fortune in serums and hormones. His primary hedge against aging was a yearly pilgrimage to Tokyo, where genetic surgeons reset the code of his DNA, a procedure unavailable in Chiba” (Gibson 16). There are instances in chapter fifteen where Case is “jacking” through various points of view which is something I don’t think many people would have understood at the time and was an inspiration for a future film starring Keanu Reeves. Gibson writes, “Molly knelt, careful to avoid the blood, and turned the dead girl’s face to the light. The face Case had seen in the restaurant. There was a click, deep at the very center of things, and the world was frozen. Molly’s simstim broadcast had become a still frame, her fingers on the girl’s cheek” (Gibson 242).
Gibson signals the speculative fiction genre in the opening scene of the novel by writing the famous first cyberpunk line of Neuromancer, “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel” (Gibson 3). He continues on with a plethora of setting descriptions that give birth and rise to the cyberpunk genre; lines such as, “Ratz was tending bar, his prosthetic arm jerking monotonously…his teeth a webwork of East European steel and brown decay…a Russian military prosthesis, a seven-function force-feedback manipulator, cased in grubby pink plastic” (Gibson 3-4).
The promise that Gibson is making to readers in the opening scene is that the reader is going to experience a rather overwhelming look into a world they have never been to; almost as if he is giving the reader the same ability to jack into an unknown matrix for the first time just as Case has been give or as Neo was given in the film The Matrix. We accept this ride by continuing to read on with all the various descriptions and events to follow. Pressure will ramp up when Case’s girlfriend, Linda Lee, gives him a warning that his life is in danger by telling him, “Wage…he wants to see you with a hole in your face” (Gibson 12).
Jauss states, “…Perhaps the most important purpose of point of view is to manipulate the degree of distance between the characters and the reader in order to achieve the emotional, intellectual, and moral responses the author desires” (Jauss, “From Long Shots to X-Rays: Distance & Point of View in Fiction Writing”). Gibson has chosen the third person regular omniscient narrative POV which I think is an effective choice. I think he could have gone the first person POV but given that he’s trying to create an entirely new world unlike one that has been done before, it would seem only appropriate that he would choose third person instead of first person. This reason being that he can be the higher power type of narrator who can explain everything as needed rather than relying on the possible restrictions that come with seeing the world through only one or a few individuals which may be limited by their knowledge of their settings.
Jauss states, “In limited omniscience, the narrator relates the thoughts and feelings of only one character whereas in regular omniscience, he relates the thoughts and feelings of at least two and usually more” (Jauss, “From Long Shots to X-Rays: Distance & Point of View in Fiction Writing”). Jauss also states, “Like omniscience, indirect interior monologue allows the narrator to be simultaneously outside and inside a character, but because he is giving us the character’s thoughts in the character’s language, not his own, he is farther inside a character than in any of the other points of view we’ve discussed so far” (Jauss, “From Long Shots to X-Rays: Distance & Point of View in Fiction Writing”).
When Case is able to jack into the matrix, he is able to see or “ride along” with other characters in their bodies like an observer…. This allows us to see the world through other first-person points of view while still remaining with Case as our main third person point of view.
What’s interesting about this notion of point of view, is that even though it’s told through a third person narrative strictly focusing on Case, when Case is able to jack into the matrix, he is able to see or “ride along” with other characters in their bodies like an observer who can see and feel exactly what they see despite being unable to physically or emotionally act. This allows us to see the world through other first-person points of view while still remaining with Case as our main third person point of view. It is a neat and clever tactic created by Gibson. It is as if we are shifting from limited to regular omniscience, and back and forth through third person and first-person points of view.
Works Cited
Gibson, William. Neuromancer. New York, Penguin Group, 1984.
Jauss, David. “From Long Shots to X-Rays: Distance & Point of View in Fiction Writing.” Association of Writers and Writing Programs, https://www.awpwriter.org/magazine_media/writers_chronicle_view/1731/from_long_shots_to_x-rays_distance_point_of_view_in_fiction_writing. Accessed 01 Aug. 2023.
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Paul W Romero 