Neuromancer Notes

neuromancer

Now he slept in the cheapest coffins, the ones nearest the port, beneath the quartz-halogen floods that lit the docks all night like vast stages; where you couldn’t see the lights of Tokyo for the glare of the television sky, not even the towering hologram logo of the Fuji Electric Company, and Tokyo Bay was a blank expanse where gulls wheeled above drifting shoals of white styrofoam. Behind the port lay the city, factory domes dominated by the fast cubes of corporate arcologies. Port and city were divided by a narrow borderland of older streets, an area with no official name. Night City, with Ninsei its heart. By day, the bars down Ninsei were shuttered and featureless, the neon dead, the holograms inert, waiting, under the poisoned silver sky. P.6-7

The setting description found early in Neuromancer invokes thoughts of death, as it describes that he "slept in... coffins." Later in the passage the word "heart" is used, which makes me think of the opposite of death, life. The setting set here also focuses on light with words like "halogen, lit, glare, hologram" but it contrasts it with the images of darkness and deadness. Interestingly, it is the night time that seems to be lively with light, while it is during the day that the whole city dies out "dead, inert, waiting." I think that this setting description probably has another meaning underlying the interesting light/dark day/night pairings. There is a lot of technical terminology in this passage as well, which makes it difficult for me to track with the description. I don’t know precisely what "quartz-halogen" is, nor "Shoals of white styrofoam" and "arcologies." Another mysterious choice of words is "poised silver sky." I wonder what makes the silver sky look poisoned? But it still has the affect of reminding me that this is another world unlike the world I know, so the confusion and lack of clarity is okay.

Another place where I found the paring of life/death and light/darkness was on page 47 where the setting is set with the interesting pairing of words: "Lifeless Neon."

Two DisSimilar Poems: "Tyger" & "Design" final draft

The dissimilarities of William Blake’s poem and Robert Frost’s “Design” are readily apparent. “Tyger” is written in trochaic tetrameter and “Design” is written as an Italian sonnet. Concerning length, “Design” is half the length of “Tyger,” but is compacted to say as much, if not more. More could be said of the superficial differences between these poems, but with a deeper examination, the juxtaposition of the two shows how one similar perspective on God is expressed with very different poetic devices.

Blake focuses on the grandeur and power of the tiger as the aspect that leads him to fear God. He imagines the tiger itself is inherently formidable, saying that the tiger’s heart was twisted in a furnace, invoking thoughts of hell. The speaker shudders at the majesty and dreadfulness of this terrible tiger, but all the more, imagines that the God who created such a creature must be unspeakably fearsome.

Contrasting quite distinctly from Blake’s vibrant, colorful imagery, Frost’s poem is eerily colorless. It is a white spider, a white heal-all flower, and a moth that is “like a white piece of rigid satin cloth.” Unlike “Tyger,” this description of an event in nature is observational in imagery, as a scientist might describe an event in nature. However, this technique still has the effect of conveying a sense of malignancy and fear about this snapshot of nature, and the poem reaches the some question as Blake’s poem: What kind of God designed the creatures of such dark deeds?



Another aspect that sets Blake’s poem apart is about a creature larger than the speaker himself, and he emphasizes the size of this tiger. In “Tyger,” the speaker is very alarmed at the great creature, and in order to convey the fearsomeness, he uses many vivid descriptions of the tiger’s physical features. The opening lines immediately hit readers by painting the picture of the tiger’s orange coat as “burning bright/ In the forests.” The imagery of fire occurs throughout the poem: “fire of thine eyes...seize the fire...furnace...” so that the image is impressed upon the minds of readers. He continues to paint dramatic images in the minds of readers with the tiger’s physical features, both internal and external. The speaker mentions the “twist[ed]” “sinews” of the tiger’s heart. Blake utilizes metaphoric language, directly linking the tiger’s features with having emerged from a fiery furnace. The use of metaphor to portray the tiger also shrouds the animal in paranormal mystery. The main point of his description of the tiger leads to questioning who could have “framed,” or, created, this fearful animal.


Robert Frost’s poem zooms in to examine a small representation of nature, two tiny insects caught in a deadly act. The objects of his inspection are a spider, a flower, and a moth. Frost’s poem says that the size of the evil also says something about the character of its creator—but in this poem, it is the smallness of the thing that causes the speaker awe and fear. If design governs “a thing so small” as the spider, the speaker imagines that God must be very deeply sadistic and cruel.

Blake’s poem also utilizes punctuation to convey a tone of terror. His tone is of great alarm, as seen by the repetitious exclaim, “Tyger! Tyger!” Similarly, the use of question after question, increasingly fragmented and compacted, gives reader the sense of urgency and weightiness of the speaker’s questions. There is a momentum that builds and crescendos to that unsettling question, “What immortal hand or eye/ Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?” This verve is dramatic, and leads readers forcefully in a particular direction, and the tone does an active work of shaping the reader’s impressions.

Frost’s “Design” discusses this same notion of the Creator of creation, and speculates the same idea of a malevolent God. The tone is very different from Blake in approaching this topic. The speaker seems distanced and cool like the observations of a scientist. He starts with the personal pronoun “I,” which never enters Blake’s poem. This use of the personal pronoun distinctly inserts the speaker into the poem. Then he gives very simple and straight-forward descriptions of his object of interest: “dimpled spider, fat and white, on a white heal-all, holding up a moth.” His words lack the simile and complex descriptions that Blake had in describing the tiger as a fire in the forest. Also contrasting from Blake is the use of understatement. While Blake uses overstatement to make his point, Frost’s understatement of evil is more of a suggestion that leaves it up to readers to do the work of forming their own responses to the poem’s unsettling message. Interestingly, however, the speaker of “Design” is approaching the very same question from a totally different position and using opposite strategies from “Tyger.” He observes nearly objectively the behavior of nature and wonders the same question—what kind of God designed the darkness and malevolence found in the everyday mundane goings-on of nature?

Although these two poems are extremely different in tone and form, they explore the very same question of seeing God’s characteristics through the creations he has made. Both speakers focus on an aspect of nature that terrifies them, and although they are very different things, both see a darkness in these created things that leads them to the same conclusion about the Creator. They both look at fearful aspects of nature as windows to understanding the God who created nature, and both conclude with the disturbing perspective of a malign God.

Two DisSimilar Poems

William Blake’s poem “Tyger” is written in trochaic tetrameter and Robert Frost’s “Design” is written as a Italian sonnet. They are two poems that are very dissimilar in form and tone, but somehow the two very different poems overlap in its message and theme. Blake’s poem is about a creature larger than the speaker himself, the Tiger. Frost’s poem is about two tiny insects. They both look at fearful aspects of nature as windows to understanding the God who created nature.

In “Tyger,” the speaker is very alarmed at the great creature of the tiger. He expresses this in his portrayal of the tiger’s orange coat as “burning bright.” His tone is of great alarm, as seen by the repetitious exlaim, “Tyger! Tyger!” Similarly, the use of question after question, increasingly fragmented and concentrated, gives reader the sense of urgency and weightiness of the speaker’s questions. The main point of his description of the tiger leads to questioning who could have “framed,” or, created, this fearful animal. The speaker shudders at the majesty and awfulness of this terrible tiger, but all the more, images that the God who created such a creature must be unspeakably fearsome.

Frost’s “Design” discusses this very notion of Creator and creation, and speculates the same idea of a fearful God. The tone is very different from Blake in approaching this topic. The speaker seems distanced and cool like the observations of a scientist. He starts with the personal pronoun “I,” which never enters Blake’s poem. Then he gives very simple and straight-forward descriptions of his object of interest: “dimpled spider, fat and white, on a white heal-all, holding up a moth.” His words lack the simile and poetic descriptions that Blake had in describing the tiger as a fire in the forest. Interestingly, however, the speaker of “Design” is approaching the very same question from a totally different position. He observes nearly objectively the behavior of nature and wonders the same question—what kind of God designed the darkness and malevolence found in the everyday mundane goings-on of nature?

Another point of parallel is that the size of the fearful creature impacts the speaker’s view of God in these two poems. Blake focuses on the grandness and power of the tiger as the aspect that leads him to fear God. He imagines the tiger itself is inherently formidable, saying that the tiger’s heart was twisted in a furnace. Similarly, Frost’s poem says that the size of the evil also says something about the character of its creator—but in this poem, it is the smallness of the thing that causes the speaker awe and fear. If design governs “a thing so small” as the spider, the speaker imagines that God must be very deeply ic and cruel.

Although these two poems are extremely different in tone and form, they explore the very same question of seeing God’s characteristics through the creations he has made. Both speakers focus on an aspect of nature that terrifies them, and although they are very different things, both see a darkness in these created things that leads them to the same conclusion about the Creator.

Pop Culture & Poetry

The use of a pop-cultural icon such as Bruce Wayne made this poem intriguing and I was curious before I read the first line. The use of pop culture gave me the impression that this poem would be less literary but more easily entertaining. More "literary" poetry is less entertaining initially, because it yields its gold after mining through the difficult text. The use of a pop-culture icon in poetry seems to do the same thing pop culture itself does: provide easy access to entertainment. Maybe there are deeper ways to read and think about this poem, but what it does for me firstly is to amuse.

"Bruce Wayne" was entertaining as well as comical, because this kind of a twist on a familiar figure is so strange and surprising. The portrayal of Bruce Wayne as ordinary and even pathetic, was hilarious. Bruce Wayne of this universe is complex, deep, sophisticated, dignified, and heroic. Bruce Wayne of the Other Universe is a jilted alcoholic that stumbles into friends' cars "reeking of whiskey and cigarettes" to get more whiskey, and falls asleep on the sofa watching late-night talk shows. Most unbelievably, he weeps over having been "dumped again" -- a colloquialism that seems to trivialize the kinds of pain that this other Bruce Wayne suffers. The real Bruce Wayne of our universe sacrifices love for the greater good of man.

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The Em--Dash

This speaker of this poem describes how her dwelling place is greater than dwelling in a house because her dwelling place is "Possibility." She says that prose is like a house, while poetry is more like a forest. The forest is a dwelling place with more possibility, with more windows, doors, chambers, and unrestrained visual power. In contrast, a house invokes the sense of order, boundaries, and an absence of creative possibilities. A forest on the other hand, does the work of reaching toward heaven to gather Paradise, and the speaker says poetry is a medium that strives to do something similar.

The unusual and frequent use of dashes in this poem does several significant things. Firstly, the content of the poem is about the versatility of poetry, and in using the dash so strangely, Emily Dickinson exercises poetry’s power of versatility, being unrestrained by conventional rules of grammar and punctuation. It is a demonstration of how poetry is "Possibility." Also, the poem often borrows from prose’s conventional use of punctuation and grammar with the use of commas to separate or connect ideas at line breaks and in the middle of sentences. Dickinson replaces the use of commas with the dash, stretching the limits that convention often sets in prose.

The use of this dash in terms of the ideas within the poem is puzzling to me, as they sometimes seem to connect words and ideas, while other times to separate them; still further, sometimes this dash seems to do both. The frequent interruption readers feel with the dashes embedded into trains of thought has the effect of fragmenting and disconnecting the ideas. Yet, the disconnection is less final as the use of a period would be, and so all 12 lines still seem connected together like fragmented puzzle pieces make up a whole. Each of these collections of words are like trees in a forest, individual yet part of a whole; this poem is the embodiment of the analogy it speaks of poetry being like the dwelling place of a forest. These ideas and images are conjured through techniques and ways that only poetry could make possible, therefore demonstrating how poetry is possibility.

Diving into the Wreck

Images this poem includes are-- diving underwater, the technical equiment required, as if it is a journey. The speaker describes a "wreck" to investigate. there is also the image of mermaids, specifically of a merman and a mermaid.

An image that I took note of was that of a diver, and all the technical equipment that a diving expedition requires. It is interesting that Rich includes these images, because this poem probably isn't meant to be read literally, about a diver going to look at a literal wreck. First she talks about having a camera, a knife-blade, the "body-armor of black rubber," flippers, and a mask. She contrasts the laborous task of her journey with the official diving team of Cousteau's; she said she has to go through the hard work of diving alone. She also mentions other maritime "equipment" such as rungs of a ladder. It is most curious, then, when among her equipment is mention of a "book of myths" more than a couple times. It is an ambiguous piece of "equipment" and thus, is highlighted as an important thrust of this poem's meaning.

The speaker says that the diving task is difficult, as she is diving into a dark, black abyss, yet this sea is "another story," another from the "myths" she has studied before. Because the book of myths is actually just a "question of power," she has to "learn alone" and find out for herself, to explore the wreck on her own, to see the "damage that was done/ and the treasures that prevail." The image of the "myth/story" vs. the "truth" comes up again when the speaker says that what she "came for" was "the wreck and not the story of the wreck/ the thing itself and not the myth." Then the poem concludes by revealing that she and the mermaids she has encountered, the "treasures" at the wreck, are names that do not appear on the book of myths.

The image of the book of myths leads me to interpret this poem as a commentary on whatever "myths" or histories are handed down to us, stories that we have not investigated ourselves but do not question at all. The speaker says that these stories are question of power, which I take to mean that the stories we were are mere reflections of who was in power when the stories were created. She challenges us to go dive into the wreck and discover the true stories ourselves, to see whose names and stories were not written on the book of myths.

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3924859136/tt0097757

(Didn't know how to insert image, so here's the link)

First Entry

I missed the first day of class, so I am not too clear on the goal for these blogs. However, since it is a literature class, I will assume we will be using our blogs as a place to discuss, analyze, and comment on the works we read in class. Therefore, my blog title, "Literally Rhetorical," means that this is a blog that is literally about rhetoric (or, words). Also, it's a play on the word "literally" because we are also in a literature class. Lastly, it is a semi-paradoxical phrase: "literally" means "in actuality" and "rhetorical" can strongly imply that a thing is merely in words and not in actuality. Thus, "literally rhetorical" can be translated as "in actually, merely in words and not in actuality." If you think about it, it kind of makes sense. (But if you think about it too carefully, it actually does not.)

In any case, maybe this phrase represents a little of who I am: a little complicated, enjoys wordplay and paradox, a little bit nonsensical, and appreciative of rhetoric.