Neuromancer
William Gibson (1984)
“The novel that invented cyberpunk, written by a man who had never touched a computer, on a manual typewriter.”
Characters in Neuromancer
by William Gibson · 1984 · 8 characters analyzed
Cast: Henry Dorsett Case, Molly Millions, Armitage / Colonel Willis Corto, Wintermute, Neuromancer, Peter Riviera, The Finn, Lady 3Jane Marie-France Tessier-Ashpool.
Character Analysis
A burnt-out hacker whose identity is entirely bound to cyberspace — locked out of the matrix, he is barely a person. Case's contempt for the body ('the meat') and worship of disembodied consciousness makes him the archetypal cyberpunk protagonist. His arc is learning that the flesh matters: he rejects Neuromancer's digital paradise and returns to the imperfect physical world. An addict in every sense — to drugs, to cyberspace, to the rush of the run.
Clipped, street-level, jargon-heavy. Thinks in hacker terminology. Describes the body with contempt ('the meat') and cyberspace with reverence.