Case’s physical existence in Chiba is presented as a state of stagnation. Little changes, there is no hope for the better. Events are brought into motion by the arrival of Molly in her role as the plot catalyst. As Case’s nerves are restored to the stage at which he is again able to access cyberspace, the text begins to approach its first passage that can be identified as an example of virtual ekphrasis. It is the first glimpse of cyberspace offered to the reader, who, throughout the novel, only ‘sees’ through the point of view of Case. In the strict monofocalization, Case’s emotions of depression at his withdrawal, addicted anticipation at the prospect of his return to cyberspace and his ecstatic arrival guide the responses of the reader, but the third-person past narrative retains a certain level of detachment. The reader remains an observer of Case’s activities and emotions, but is unlikely to fully experience them for him- or herself. Consequently, the first ekphrastic passage relies greatly on poetic language and effects to increase the sense of indirect immersion.
In advance of Case’s return to cyberspace, sexual intercourse between him and Molly takes place. The relationship between the two characters is curious. They never develop a romantic relationship, nor is Case described as feeling any particular emotion for her. It is as though Case’s distaste for ‘meat’ almost extends as far as physical pleasures. The ‘cowboys’, hackers, regard the incorporeality of cyberspace as a superior state of being. A technology known as ‘simstim’ enables a user to directly experience the sensory input experienced by another person. Case and his colleagues consider simstim ‘a meat toy’ (p. 71), which pays excessive amount of attention to the body: ‘He knew […] that the
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cyberspace matrix was actually a drastic simplification of the human sensorium […] but simstim itself struck him as a gratuitous multiplication of flesh input’ (p. 71). Although cyberspace itself is perceived through the human senses, Case feels that the use of technology specifically with the purpose of experiencing bodily sensory input is questionable, in a Cartesian separation of mind/higher functions/higher state and body/lower functions/lower state.
The sexual relationship seems unconnected to the rest of the plot until examined from a mythological perspective. Case has just recovered from his surgery to restore his nerves. Molly, the plot catalyst, here acts as a gatekeeper of sorts. In the Sumerian and Babylonian mythologies, as written down in the epic of Gilgamesh, the wild Enkidu is transformed from a savage into a civilized man by means of intercourse with the prostitute Shamhat. Molly, who is another woman for hire for her body, once for sex and now for her security skills, concludes his transition from exile back to what the ‘console cowboys’ consider civilization: cyberspace. Significantly, it is cyberspace to which Case’s sexual satisfaction is directly compared: ‘his orgasm flaring blue in a timeless space, a vastness like the matrix, where the faces were shredded and blown away down hurricane corridors’ (p. 45). The sexual comparison foreshadows Case’s ecstatic reaccess to cyberspace further on in the text.
From the perspective of Heffernan’s interpretation of ekphrasis, Case’s intercourse with Molly on the threshold of the subsequent ekphrastic passage is a highly relevant event. Molly is not a passive female; indeed it is she who initiates the sexual encounter in a manner that would be questionable if a male character were conducting the same act. Case does not resist, instead, he is clearly pleased, but his opinion on the matter is not enquired about. We know he is an addict to cyberspace. A reading through the traditional theoretical frame of the relationship between the viewer and the image would therefore suggest that the prospect of cyberspace, embodied in Molly, is so attractive to Case that he is in the state of thrall-like fascination, helpless before the appeal of the dangerous image. Case, whose programming skills in cyberspace are essential for his wellbeing, is not yet restored to the use of those skills. The programming skills give him control in the visual space of cyberspace, but here, when he does not yet know whether the restoration of his ability has
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worked or not, it is the prospect of the visual space – the prospect of the image – that is controlling him.
This first ekphrastic passage is short in comparison to the later ekphrasis, discussed below, but it has several important functions in its use of poetic language and rhetorical techniques. Crucially for ekphrasis, the poetic evocation is by no means necessary from the perspective of the plot. In narrative terms, it would be enough to state plainly that Case’s re-entry to cyberspace was successful. Nonetheless, this passage focuses on the situation in great detail. It conveys to the reader the importance that Case attributes to his personal relationship with cyberspace, thus establishing his motivation in the narrative. It strongly evokes the features of what Case considers to be ‘normal’ cyberspace, abstraction and bodilessness, in order to create effective contrast further on, when Case enters the representational cyberspace created by the AIs. It also transforms the factual description of cyberspace given previously, which is entirely reliant on technology, to a concept that can be experienced by humans in a strongly positively emotional manner. Crucially, the passage also transforms Case himself. By re-establishing his identity with his significant space and by retaking control over the visual through his programming skills, he shifts from depression to joy, passivity to activity within cyberspace, pointlessness to purpose, and, to a degree, from helplessness to control; although, as the subsequent ekphrastic passages show, a large part of that control is illusionary.
Neuromancer cannot yet expect that the implied reader should guess what is happening
when Case ‘jacks in’ to cyberspace. Yet, the text does not dwell on long plain descriptions of the technological equipment, although it acknowledges its presence and its necessity for the access to cyberspace. Case’s actions are required for the narrative to shift to the virtual domain. These actions are denoted throughout the text by active verbs such as ‘he took the trodes off’ (p. 69), ‘he jacked in’ (p. 99), and ‘jack out’ (p. 141). Despite the fact that the action of ‘jacking in’ is followed by Case closing his eyes and experiencing cyberspace as though it were a vivid dream, the events are not his imagination. In her eight-step identification of virtual worlds represented in fiction, Ryan has noted that the entry to the virtual world requires an act of active embodiment. Even at this early stage of the representation of the virtual in text, the dependence of the access into virtual on human
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actions is clearly visible. In the current passage, Case’s transition from the mundane into the virtual is marked by short, incomplete sentences, set on their individual lines. The incompleteness of the sentences and the lack of full paragraphs create a sensation of anticipation, holding one’s breath in preparation:
He closed his eyes.
Round the ridged face of the power stud.
The ‘ridged face’ of the device provides another evocation of physicality. The incompleteness of the second sentence creates an impression that Case closes his eyes, rather than his hand, around the power stud. Even as the transition requires deliberate physical action from him, it also marks a change in the process of gazing. Case’s visual input shifts from his mundane world to the virtual. The text makes a very subtle implication that the transition is controlled by the power of the gaze as much as by the physical motion. The two lines play with the concepts of touch and gaze, bringing them together in a Blanchotian manner. The gaze, ‘touch over a distance’ and physical touch become one.
As the first indications of cyberspace appear, the two short lead-in sentences are followed by two longer ones. Both appear as fragments to represent the ongoing anticipation and the increasing movement of the visuals from the darkness of the closed eyes:
And in the bloodlit dark behind his eyes, silver phosphenes boiling in from the edge of space, hypnagogic images jerking past like film compiled from random frames. Symbols, figures, faces, a blurred, fragmented mandala of visual information.
The fact that the visual perception in cyberspace requires closed physical eyes is highly ironic. Despite the notion that entry to the virtual requires technological equipment rather than just pure imagination, here, the virtual space literally becomes the user’s mindspace. The ‘dark behind his eyes’ recalls Gibson’s description of his own envisioning of a space behind the screens of the arcade games. The vocabulary of ‘phosphemes’, ‘images jerking past like film’ and ‘a blurred, fragmented mandala of visual’ evoke images of grainy TV and film footage and newspaper images, which strengthens the sense of artificiality and experience of constructed visuals.
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In Neuromancer, the users do not have virtual bodies. They are ‘present’ in cyberspace as incorporeal points of view, with their consciousness intact, but only aware of their virtual surroundings. The sense of movement within cyberspace occurs by shifting the incorporeal point of view in three dimensions at varying speeds. Although cyberspace appears as an infinite transparent grid, it still presents an impression of depth and perspective. In this passage, the sense of depth is not created by Case’s own movement, but by the ‘unfolding’ of cyberspace around him. A perspective, of sorts, increases the sense of surrounding space: ‘[H]igh and very far away he saw the spiral arms of military systems, forever beyond his reach.’ (p. 69) In text, the sense of movement is evoked by further short sentences, situated on separate lines and fragmented to the point of only consisting of one word here and there. The variation of the lengths of sentences and the plentitude of punctuation used, together with verbs of movement, lead to the creation of a pulsing verbal movement. Following the indirect speech, ‘Please, he prayed, now’ – with the ‘Now –’ repeated on a separate line, the immediately following lines form an orgasmic effect of fulfilment, with their alliterative vocabulary of ‘flowed – flowered – fluid – unfolding’ of subtly erotic connotations:
Disk beginning to rotate, faster, becoming a sphere of paler gray. Expanding –
And flowed, flowered for him, fluid neon origami trick, the unfolding of his distanceless home, his country, transparent 3D chessboard extending to infinity.
The fulfillment expressed in these lines, reminiscent of Case’s sexual intercourse with Molly, focuses on Case’s experience of return to ‘home’. More than ‘his distanceless home’, cyberspace is even ‘his country’. An exile in the physical world amongst those who have also left their mundane places of birth, Case’s self-image as a citizen of cyberspace is actualized on his return.
The ekphrasis ends before the reader learns what Case actually does in cyberspace, following his re-entry. The passage has emphasized the transition and its effects, without any purpose to demonstrate Case’s subsequent actions. By focusing on his affective experience in the transitional space between the mundane world and the virtual, the ekphrasis highlights the division between the two. Specifically, it draws attention to the unreliability of Case’s attitudes concerning the two worlds. Although Case appears to revel in the bodilessness of cyberspace, the experience is evoked in a sexual manner, as an
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indirect continuation from his initiatory intercourse with Molly. His post-orgasmic state of relief and bliss is emphasized in the closing lines of the ekphrasis of the passage: ‘And somewhere he was laughing, in a white-painted loft, distant fingers caressing the deck, tears of release streaking his face’ (p. 69). Although Case’s perception and his physical body are seemingly separated, his experience in cyberspace leads to a physical reaction in the mundane space. Despite the attempts of the ‘console cowboys’ to keep the world of the flesh and the world of the mind separate, an interdependent connection is demonstrated.