Bodies and Machines

A central theme of Neuromancer is the relationship between physical bodies and digital existence. Case calls his body "meat," an inconvenient container for the consciousness that truly lives in cyberspace. His partner Molly has modified hers: retractable razor blades under her fingernails, mirrored lenses sealed over her eyes. Gibson anticipated the modern tension between physical and digital identity: the care people pour into their online personas, and the growing sense that the mind might be separable from the body.