Settings in "Neuromancer" by William Gibson

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel” (3). The “dead channel” is a channel of endless colors with sounds like a madness roar. As I read the first sentence of the novel, I would visualize the motions of the sky and the reflections to the raging city below it. The opening sentence not only sets the mood and setting of the novel, but it gives us foreshadowing images of what to come.

Gibson describes the setting of Ninsei as “beyond the neon shudder of ninsei, the sky was that mean shade of gray. The air had gotten worst; it seemed to have teeth tonight…” (16). The color gray is usually used for describing a situation or person to be depressed or shady, but adding the word “mean” to the description makes the image even more sharp and clear. The word “mean” shows that it is not just a shade of gray in the sky, it is a shade of gray that covers and hide the emotion under the color gray in the sky. Furthermore, the heaviness of the color created “teeth” in the atmosphere which can delivers a sharp feeling whenever people breathe because of the poor air condition. Thus sentence has the same elements as the first sentence of the novel; it gives off a rather depressing and sad feeling.

As I stated before, the first sentence also gives us foreshadowing images of what to come. Examples such as when Gibson describes the hotel, “The elevator smelled of perfume and cigarettes; the sides of the cage where scratched and thumb-smudged” (20) and “cold steel odor. Ice caressed his spine” (31). Images of darkness, coldness, sharpness, shadiness, and pain keeps popping up whenever Gibson tries to describe any certain setting in the novel. I believe this will occur quite frequently throughout the novel since the first couple of chapters reflect such dark elements.