LITERARY ANLYSIS ESSAY BY: Rex Wong
ABOUT THIS ESSAY
Introduction by Prof. Lucas Kwong
This final project for ENG 2420: Science Fiction asked students to write a creative "riff" on a Science Fiction (SF) text that explores its connections to another SF text, and/or a philosophical or sociopolitical issue common to both.
In his creative riff, Rex offers his take on a mashup of William Gibson's short story classic "The Winter Market" and the seminal 1996 manga Ghost in the Shell.
In the following essay, he offers his analysis of "The Winter Market", Ghost in the Shell, and his own short story.
ABOUT THE PHOTO
By David Guananga
My photo is an example of fun and experimentation with lights. My inspiration was a shower of colored stars. This has helped me play more and discover more things that can be done with lights.
Science fiction does not shy away from questions about human mortality. In using technology as a tool to tell unique stories about death and its relationship with society, science fiction writers often tell stories of how people deal with death or the process of dying.
In the short story “The Winter Market” (1986), William Gibson creates a world where people can transcend death through technology. Gibson tells a story of a woman, Lise, whose humanity is stripped from them bit by bit until, ultimately, they are no longer recognizable to those closest to them.
The plot recalls another excellent example of mortality in fiction, Masamune Shirow’s manga Ghost in the Shell (1995). Shirow’s landmark manga portrays similar technology that also allows consciousness to go beyond its physical limitations.
Like Gibson’s “The Winter Market”, Ghost in the Shell (GITS) also belongs to the cyberpunk genre of science fiction, a mix of high-tech societies and a particular focus on the nitty-gritty aspects of daily life in those societies. In addition, both works tell their stories from what could be considered a working class lens, bring into perspective confrontations between different classes.
That said, the two narratives display distinct styles. As a manga comic, Ghost in the Shell relies on visuals for environmental storytelling, and they are often told from the third person limited point of view. Moreover, Ghost in the Shell combines detective fiction with cyberpunk, providing unique relationships between the story’s main character(s) and their society.
And lastly, Ghost in the Shell employs a much more action-orientated narrative than Gibson’s “The Winter Market,” following the work of detectives uncovering crimes, dangerous shootouts, and many other life-threatening scenarios. These characteristics create a story that, in contrasting with Gibson’s style, cast a different light onto the themes “The Winter Market” shares with Ghost In The Shell.
In my riff, I created a riff based on Gibson’s use of perspective, characterization, and character change, in combination with a plot based on the detective fiction universe Ghost in the Shell. My creative riff demonstrates Gibson’s views on how technology affects social structures, as well as the philosophical ramifications of transferring consciousness.
Ultimately, the juxtaposition of the texts highlights the way Gibson offers differing points of view about the fusion of human and digital.
My creative riff explores two particular themes in Gibson’s short story.
Firstly, Gibson emphasizes how people living “the low life” in cyberpunk view their social mobility.
Near the closing act of “The Winter Market,” the artist Rubin explains to Casey, his friend and the story’s narrator, the weight of what the character Lise has created for those at the bottom of society:
“… What else did you think she was after? Sex? More win? A world tour? She was past all that. That’s what made her so strong. She was past it. That’s why Kings of Sleep’s as big as it is, and why the kids buy it, why they believe it. They know. Those kids back down the Market, warming their butts around the fires and wondering if they’ll find someplace to sleep tonight, they believe it …” (Gibson 15)
In this small moment of exposition, Gibson explores the relationship between technology and society.
In the universe of “The Winter Market”, there are bounds to people’s mobility in a society that is invisible to those in it. Gibson uses the character Lise, as well as the video game that she has co-created, Kings of Sleep, to show how technology “…painted them a picture…” (Gibson 16), revealing to those in the underclass the cages they live in.
Viewing Lise as someone who came from the same roots they are living, the kids consider her and her art as living proof that they, too, have a chance to make it big or to leave the low life behind. Although Gibson’s story is not about the fight of those “kids,” the scene shows Lise’s relationship with her society and what she stands for, through the lens of Rubin’s more privileged character.
That said, Rubin also notes moments later that not too many have made it on the same path of success, and most are not viewed in the light as Lise is. Indeed, over the course of the narrative, Lise’s relationship with society, and ultimately Casey, takes a dramatic shift, exposing the escape Lise stood for as nothing more than an illusion.
This occurs when, despite her origins, Lise is able to transcend death: through a combination of determination and happenstance, she has her consciousness uploaded to the cloud. Casey describes Lise as one with a “…singleness of purpose,” who can understand and present things that others simply cannot. When speaking of Lise, Rubin adds:
“So she sang it for them, said it that way they can’t, painted them a picture. And she used the money to buy herself a way out, that’s all.” (Gibson 16)
Lise is presented as someone, who, from nothing, became an icon to those of similar circumstances, and with some luck, was able to escape destined death from her congenital disease.
However, the story’s crux turns on whether the final facsimile of Lise’s consciousness, stored in the cloud, represents the same person as Lise herself. Through interactions between Casey and Rubin, and the penultimate interaction between Casey and Lise, we can see that Lise’s escape is socially impossible, and she may have even failed to escape death.
My creative riff demonstrates Gibson’s views on how technology affects social structures, as well as the philosophical ramifications of transferring consciousness.
During the story’s closing, Casey questions if the Lise who calls him from the cloud would be the same person he knows. Unlike Rubin, Casey has had a much closer relationship with Lise and has seen her the day before she went beyond death’s grasp. At that time, Casey comes to the conclusion that:
“… if I hadn’t happened in there, hadn’t seen them, I’d have been able to accept all that came later. Might even have found a way to rejoice on her behalf, or found a way to trust in whatever it is that she’s since become, or had built in her image… I could have believed what Rubin believes, that she was so truly past it… that nothing mattered to her except the hour of her departure …”
Casey ends the story conflicted about his history with Lise, stranded with the knowledge that she is physically no longer present. Juxtaposed with Rubin’s view of Lise’s departure as an escape from social and physical ailments, the ending allows Gibson’s to emphasize how different people view consciousness transference. Seen in the light of Casey’s close relationship with Lise, these contrasting views help Gibson show ambiguity and uncertainty over the possibility of escape.
These themes contextualize my creative riff’s approach to the stylistic differences between “The Winter Market” and Ghost In The Shell. In relying on GITS’s more expressive and colorful imagery, I sought to shift the atmosphere created by “The Winter Market,” even while presenting a relationship between society and the main character/narrator that is similar to the one portrayed in “The Winter Market.”
In using GITS‘ more visual style of storytelling, the riff depicts two conflicting characters reflecting on someone who has achieved immortality through uploading their consciousness. The characters’ contradictory views not only reinforce the relationship between different characters and their class-divdied society, but also tells a different narrative when compared to Gibson’s Casey/Rubin dynamic.
My riff begins with a similar atmosphere to that of Gibson’s story. “The Winter Market” opens in a very gritty and blunt atmosphere, with Gibson describing the setting of Vancouver as dark, emphasizing contrasting colors through snow and black water. However, unlike in Gibson’s story, I show technology’s advancements, via the introduction of holographic imagery and towering skyscrapers compared to the simple neon and mercury vapor lights of Gibson’s Vancouver.
[NOT PICTURED DO TO COPYRIGHT ISSUES] An example of visual storytelling at a macro scale (top panel) and at a micro scale (bottom panel) in GITS. The panels show visual storytelling’s ability to quickly illustrate the context and characters’ actions.
As the riff takes on inspiration from GITS, seemingly secondary elements of the environment gain in pertinence. For example, consider my introduction of the body whose consciousness was uploaded:
“… it’s in a tub, precariously floating in a tub filled with water, a thin layer of transparent ice chunks still visible floating alongside the body. I take note of the too-large cooling suit and the electrodes hidden by her hair splayed out across the head of the tub… Tracing the trodes to a terminal, my hands glide over the well-worn keys before tapping experimentally. I remember the ease Akira once had with tech.”
While this scene is comparable to many locations in Gibson’s story, I also considered the format of manga or comic series, whose scenes might pack visual storytelling into a concentrated amount of space and time. In addition, a manga or a comic can easily present elements like dialogue with the backdrop of a much more significant part, like a city, without breaking the flow of a story.
My riff‘s character relationships also invite comparison to both narratives. The unnamed protagonist has a history with a woman called Akira, who uploaded their consciousness. Like Casey in Gibson’s work, he faces the thought of possible life beyond death, expressing apprehension at meeting the person he lost after seeing her dead and laying her to rest.
Unlike Gibson, however, the riff presents the relationship postmortem: we see no interaction with the dead, only brief snippets of characterization by exposition and conversation between characters.
Moreover, unlike Gibson, I show conversations in which the main character doesn’t participate: for example, a conversation between bystanders along the street during the introduction. This takes on a similar style to the visuals of GITS, in which a wide range of characters might drop in only for one line, or might serve as background to fill out the visual expanse of the setting.
[NOT PICTURED DO TO COPYRIGHT ISSUES] An example of visual storytelling at a macro scale (top panel) and at a micro-scale (bottom panels) in GITS; This is an example of visual storytelling’s ability to quickly illustrate context and character’s actions.
Descriptions of physical action also influenced the riff. Take, for example, a scene where two disparate characters, who knew of the Akira from two different histories, interact in a physical space. Gibson’s description of a similar physical interaction is exemplified when Casey and Lise “…jacked straight across…,” sharing consciousness (Gibson 6). Gibson depicts the positions people are in, their hand movements, and what direction they are facing to focus.
The riff builds on this by describing the emotions the narrator sees, as well as the hostile actions inflicted on the narrator. In addition, my scene accents the discord between the two characters on the subject of Akira despite them having only met for mere moments. In the end, the characters’ physical actions, in the riff have a higher impact on the story and the themes presented than in Gibson’s work.
The story’s crux turns on whether the final facsimile of Lise’s consciousness, stored in the cloud, represents the same person as Lise herself.
Finally, the riff contrasts with Gibson’s work by turning the dynamic of the Rubin/Casey on its head, as the two characters driving my narrative do not see eye to eye. For example, Rubin sees Lise through the lens of her recordings, its ambitions, and its meaning to the people; Casey not only understands his view but wishes to be able to see her through the same light.
In contrast, the narrator and Rubin’s counterparts in the riff cannot express the same experience and exact wishes as they have entirely different experiences regarding the person who has left them.
Indeed, the riff also does not explore the personal relationship with the departed through the lens of Rubin’s counterpart. The limited point of view and the pacing of the story does not allow for a dive into how Rubin and Rubin’s counterpart in the riff come to their conclusions. This contrasts not only with “The Winter Market,” but also with Ghost In The Shell, whose longer form depicts independent threads of the story converging together over time.
Technology’s heavy impact on relationships between people, and between people and death, carries influence throughout sci-fi, especially the cyberpunk genre titles “The Winter Market” and Ghost in the Shell. In writing my own riff, I was influenced by how these texts approached these themes through character dialogue, physical actions of characters/objects, and descriptions of the world itself.
Works Cited
Gibson, William. “The Winter Market.” Vancouver Magazine, 1985. PDF/EPUB. 12th May 2023. <https://libgen.rs/fiction/1360360815DE7003DC77920EF4A30999>.
Masamune, Shirow. The Ghost in the Shell. Kodansha Comics, 2017. Print.
