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 and there is no border between the living and the dead. His ex-girlfriend Linda Lyn is on a beach but she is dead. Though she is not living, Gibson gives her physicality so that her existence is real. The following passage proves this.
"Looked back and she was following him, not trying to catch up, the broken zip of the French fatigues flapping against the brown of her belly, pubic hair framed in torn fabric ... only she was tired and sad and human, the ripped costume pathetic as she stumbled over clumps of salt-silver sea grass." (Gibson, 243)
"For fifteen years, ever since Matt died, people have been asking me how a woman makes love to a corpse.
Matt was the only person who figured it out. He was a medical student, so he knew that if you apply pressure to the chest of certain fresh corpses, they purge blood out of their mouths." (Gowdy, 177)
The girl stays unknown throughout the story and is a necrophile. Compared to Case, she has a different interaction with the dead. In We So Seld...
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...ase's outlook on reality should be like.
The capacities on a variety of reality levels and its attitudes show throughout Neuromancer and We So Seldom Look on Love. Each story is able to incorporate diverse realities shown by the main character as well as the culture around them. When living in a different reality, one places as the odd-man-out to everyone else because of idealistic perceptions of reality. One can understand the reality of a fragmented mind when entering the unusual world of realism themselves as well as understanding the personality of those who are open-minded and accepts diverse levels of realism.
CITATIONS
Gibson, William. Neuromancer. New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 1984.
Gowdy, Barbara. "We So Seldom Look on Love." We So Seldom Look on Love. Toronto: Somerville House Publishing, 1992.
“Terminal Avenue” versus “We So Seldom Look on Love” Eden Robinson’s “Terminal Avenue” was published in the anthology or collection of fictional short stories called “So Long Been Dreaming” in 2004. Bose “Terminal Avenue” is a futuristic dystopian short story about a young aboriginal man named Wil, who is torn between his aboriginal community whose traditions are being punished for by the police and or being punished by his family if he becomes a peace officer to survive the adjustment. Barbara Gowdy’s “We So Seldom Look at Love” is a collection of fictional short stories and was published in 1992. (Broadview Press) “We So Seldom Look on Love” collections include a short story about a young woman that lives the life of necrophilia who grew up in a moderately normal childhood until the age of thirteen. Where one day she finds a forceful energy she gets from when life turns into death, and continues to experiment with dead animals and cadavers.
Robinson, Marilynne. " Marriage and other Astonishing Bonds." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Roger Matuz. Detroit: Gale Publishing Inc., 1989. 276-278.
Big hair, bright colors, and denim helped to establish the time period the play was set in. Each actress’ outfit gave the audience an idea of her character’s personality. For instance, Clairee wore pant suits and looked the part of a sophisticated, classy former mayor’s wife. On the other hand, Ouiser wore comfortable clothes; often sporting a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt over a t-shirt showing her practical and simple lifestyle. The use of jackets and scarves portrayed the change in season and helped establish the different time frames from scene to scene. The costumes reflected each character well and were fitting for the time in which the play was portrayed.
“Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (O'Conner 413).
The article, “Measurement of Romantic Love” written by Zick Rubin, expresses the initial research aimed at presenting and validating the social-psychological construct of romantic love. The author assumed that love should be measured independently from liking. In this research, the romantic love was also conceptualized to three elements: affiliative and depend need, an orientation of exclusiveness and absorption, and finally a predisposition to help.
"Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady" (O'Conner 138).
In the novel "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan, the ignorance, the disregard of, and the necessity of love are all reveled as the characters tell their life stories and memories. The characters in the novel take love for granted. By ignoring love, concentrating more on material possessions, and hiding their true identities, the characters don't realize love's importance.
Bradstreet, Anne. "To My Dear and Loving Husband." The Columbia Anthology of American Poetry. Ed. Jay Parini. New York: Columbia UP, 1995. 28.
Farries, Helen. “Magic of Love.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Mayer. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2012. 581. Print
Realism is a style of writing which shows how things are in life. It showed how mostly every person thought life was just perfect. They were not seeing the
Carver, Raymond. “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” Literature and the Writing Process 2011. Ed. Vivian Garcia. Pearson, 2011. 348-356. Print.
What does it mean to love another person? This question is one that virtually every person has asked himself at some point; virtually every school of thought that exists has attempted to provide an answer of some sort. In this paper I will explain my own attempt at answering that question, from the perspective of an amateur philosopher; then I shall delineate the answers that some biologists have given. We shall see that, while at first these two sets of answers might appear to be quite different, there are in fact some interesting and notable similarities.
While reading "Neuromancer", one may become extremely baffled if he or she cannot interpret the terminology used or the framework in which the book is written. Hence, the use of the formalistic approach is necessary in order for the reader to actually understand the concepts trying to be declared by Gibson. Through the formalistic approach one can begin to see that Gibson uses repetition, and specific word choice to set the tone for the novel, and imagery to relate the content of the book to the lives of his readers.
Brown, John Russell. "Love's Order and the Judgement of As You Like It." Twentieth Century Interpretations of As You Like It. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968.
Swenson, May. "In Love Made Visible." Longman Anthology of Poetry. New York: Pearson Longman, 2006. 1241-242. Print.