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Essay on A Comparison of Neuromancer and We So Seldom Look on Love

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Considering that there are many different levels of realism, I have chosen to focus on Neuromancer by William Gibson and We so Seldom Look on Love by Barbara Gowdy. The stories explore the boundaries of realism by using similar elements. The most obvious one is the margin between life and death, which these two stories address. The main characters separate themselves from society's idealistic realism. Nevertheless, where is their identity placed when living in a different realism? How does one understand the reality of a person with a fragmented mind?

"`Linda, who told you? Who told you I would come? Who?'" (Gibson, 242)

In the passage above, case enters another reality in which he is able to interact wit the dead. A duality forms…show more content…
The quotation above proves this, as she explains the process of her actions. The girl is able to clarify on the cadaver's actions to make it seem like it acts with her. Her pushing on the male's chest while in a sexual act does this.

The characters in these two texts dislodge themselves from society's perspective of realism. In Gibson's Neuromancer, Case is involved in a world where he is able to interact with the dead. The following excerpt is an example of Case entering into another world but of a contrasting realism.

"There were four sockets beneath the screen, but only one would accept the Hitachi adaptor.

He jacked in.

Nothing. Gray void.

No matrix. No grid. No cyberspace.

The deck was gone. His fingers were ...

And on the far rim of consciousness, a scurrying, a fleeting impression of something rushing toward him, across leagues of black mirror. ...

There seemed to be a city, beyond the curve of the beach, but it was far away." (Gibson, 233)

This is a reality for him since he is able to input himself into an intricate system where are the different worlds of realism are colliding and anything is possible. When he inputs himself, he leaves behind the world that contains the "real" information, and enters into a world where there are indefinite layers of the real. In Gowdy's We So Seldom Look on Love, the
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