A Study On William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy From The Perspective Of Body Theory

William Gibson is an influential American science fiction writer,whose masterpiece is the Sprawl Trilogy,which consists of Neuromancer,Count Zero,and Mona Lisa Overdrive.Set in a technologically advanced near future,the trilogy is honored as a milestone of cyberpunk science fiction for it depicts the reconstruction and deconstruction of the posthuman body in a “high-tech,low-life” anti-utopian context.In 1985,Donna J.Haraway publishes the article “Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science,Technology,and Socialist-Feminism in the 1980s”,and creates a new cyborg subject from an interdisciplinary perspective.She contends that the recoding of the body by information and biotechnology has urged the body to deviate from the rigid and static pattern,displaying a dissolution of boundaries,a fragmentation of identity,and a trend of symbiosis.Based on Haraway’s cyborg theory,this thesis investigates the posthuman body landscape in the Sprawl Trilogy,focusing on the posthuman body confusion,exploring possible ways to march toward the posthuman body poetics,and reflecting on how humans can interact with technological products positively.The thesis is divided into five chapters.Chapter one introduces the Sprawl Trilogy and its current research status,overviews cyborg theory,and clarifies research questions and research significance.Chapter two outlines the posthuman body landscape in the Trilogy from three aspects: exterior remodeling of human body,inner remodeling of human body,and transformation of the body paradigm.Technology enhances the human body while posing a challenge to the authority of the subject.Chapter three presents the posthuman body confusion of the Trilogy with three boundary breakdowns between human and machine,human and animal,and physical and non-physical.Boundary breakdowns trigger both an identity crisis and a breach of the sharp opposition between man and the other.Chapter four presents the posthuman body poetics of the trilogy with metaphorical significance,future tendency,and inspirations of cyborgs.To avoid the dilemma of posthuman body construction,the philosophy of intersubjectivity and the concept of aesthetic symbiosis should be advanced,and ethical constraints and human concerns should be strengthened.Chapter five summarizes the importance of Gibson’s creative imagination for understanding and resolving the human-machine problem.Gibson’s penetrating portrayal of the posthuman body provides an important model for the study of the human-machine relationship.Although posthumans enhance their body functions and break through physiological limitations through technology,they are also deeply trapped in the shackles of technology and are headed for physical and mental alienation.Through the projection of the future society,Gibson shows the decadent and depressing doomsday scenario under the misuse of technology,emphasizing the urgency of establishing technological rationality and regulating the order of the posthuman body,while expressing the good vision of abandoning anthropocentrism and pursuing the coevolution of man and machine.