Critical Analysis 3

"The Narrative Construction of Cyberspace: Reading Neuromancer, Reading Cyberspace Debates"
Critic: Daniel Punday
Source: College English 63, no. 2 (November 2000): 194-213.
Criticism about: Neuromancer by William Gibson

This piece discusses the relationship between Cyberspace and Narrative, within Neuromancer. It discusses what role cyberspace takes place within the novel, giving a contrast to the world of Neuromancer, where everything seems dark.

It discusses how Cyberspace can be an idealistic version of humanity, looking much brighter then the future that they lived in themselves. They also talk about how Cyberspace can deprive the story from a lot of sensory information, which can stand as a sharp contrast to the novel, with it's vivid descriptions through the senses.

There is also the fluidity of identity, which is brought up through Neuromancer, whoch brings up a question of what it means to be human, when the lines get crossed so throughly throughout the novel between Humanity and Technology. He also talks about how it was used as a contrast between Apparent realitym, and actual ones, when it came to fiction. It was a method for him to play around with existing tropes within Science Fiction, in order to make what he believed to be an interesting Narrative.

Cyberspace also brings up an interesting point on Social Contact, and cyberspace, as it lacks so much of the physical methods of communication, and the unread subtleties that are brought out when talking.

It then brings up 3 paragraphs describing MUDs, which are a type of computer game based off of randomly generated dungeons, where people's progress is tied to characters, and death is permenant. It discuses how these effect his writing style.