Thursday, April 3, 2008
Prompt 10
Throughout the novel, Case is constantly trying to escape his physical bounds by jacking into the matrix. However, he is still human so Gibson connects him to human impulses still. The two ways that Case connects to the physical body is through drugs and sex. He always has a girl around that fulfills his sexual needs. Also, in the beginning of the novel, he is restricted by his drug addiction. I found this to be an interesting connection between the "meat" and the mind. While AI's like Wintermute are simply mind and no meat and don't have the same needs, Case cannot escape his meat. While he tries to disregard his human instincts, there is still the theme of a need for sex and drugs in order to satisfy his physical needs. The sex itself, atleast in Case's case, is not influenced by technology and is simply physical pleasure.
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2 comments:
I understand your argument, but I thought it was only pleasure because he cared about both Linda Lee and Molly. I understand it was a human need, but in my opinion that was not all the sex was. If that was the case he would have had sex in Freeside with Catherine (the tanned girl who gave him the drugs) because they spoke of the drugs making him erect and she wanted to have sex with him, but he denied her. Therefore using Case as an example, sex is more than just a human need. He also doesn't have sex with Lonny Zone's hoes in Chiba when he easily could since they are hoes. Instead he happens to bump into Linda Lee and is okay with having sex with her because he truly cares about her. So, I would have to disagree with you Katie, to me sex first appears as merely "feeding the meat's needs" but in actuality Gibson implied more than that.
I find what both you and Aisha said to be true. I think that Gibson has Case fulfill these needs to show that Case is unable to escape the "meat" and human innateness even though he is able to separate his mind from his body by going into cyberspace. Even when he goes into cyberspace, however, he still feels pain and he still has to go to the bathroom and gets hungry. But I do agree with Aisha that it is more than raw physical needs. I think that Gibson is also arguing that Case is human through the emotions he feels. He does care for both Linda Lee and Molly and sex is a human act that expresses the emotions he has for them. Even when he does the drugs, he does it out of the human emotion of anger.
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