A Study Of Spaces Writing In Neuromancer

William Gibson(1948-)is one of the most influential science fiction writers in contemporary,and he is regarded as one of the founders of cyberpunk literature genre.Gibson’s first novel Neuromancer was published in 1984,and firstly won three major awards for the science fiction: the Nebula Award,the Hugo Award,and the Philip K.Dick Award,which established his high status in the field of science fictions.The novel takes the near future as its background.Via a series of spaces writing,the author offers us a panorama of social life in postindustrial era.This thesis uses Lefebvre’s spatial triad theory and Foucault’s heterotopia theory as the theoretical framework to analyze and interpret spaces depicted in the novel.In the near-future urban space landscape of Neuromancer,with the expansion of capital and power of multinational corporations,corporate power has replaced state power.Space resources are allocated according to capital.The elite who occupy a very small part of the population grabs most of the space resources while the personal and public spaces of the massive unemployed are squeezed,and full of social violence and environmental pollution.Then,the thesis explores the cyberspace in the novel.Distinct from the chaos and narrowness of urban space,cyberspace is characterized by orderliness and infinity,so it has become a refuge for people to escape the pressure of urban life and compensate for the narrowness of space.Meanwhile,cyberspace is under the control of multinational corporations and used as a digital panopticon to surveil and control people’s behaviour,which reflects Foucault’s heterotopia features and the spatial operation of power.The orbital space in the novel embodies human’s exploration and utilization of outer space resources.Two distinct life landscapes in orbital space reveal people’s vision and competition for the future space: the “Freeside” established by capitalists reveals the parasitic nature of capitalism,which is the heterotopia continuation of urban space and cyberspace under the economic and political monopoly;“Zion” established by the working class is a symbol of a self-sufficient economy,reflecting the anti-capital spatial practice of the poor class.The urban spaces,cyberspace and orbital space together constitute the complex social life landscape in the novel,and also embody the game of the social compositions includingtechnology,capital,power,class and so on at the spatial level.Exploring these spaces in the novel helps to understand the author’s thinking about the relationship between technology,capital,and politics,and also gives us forward-looking revelations on how to deal with the impact of technological development in our current lives.