The Role of Women in Burning Chrome by William Gibson - Essay Example

Bobby and the role of women in Burning Chrome by William Gibson The Burning Chrome is a collection of short films that were written by William Gibson. The Burning Chrome is a collection of his works up to the time that he published his second novel titled Count Zero. The Burning Chrome includes a collection of works published between the year 1977 and 1986 when it was published. This publication made Gibson known as a literary artisan. Three of the ten stories included in Burning Chrome were written in conjunction with John Shirley, Michael Swanwick and Bruce sterling. The Burning Chrome by Gibson has featured women in the entire piece. Bobby, a character in the Burning Chrome uses women according to his desires and plans. He has been described as having a new woman every few days. Bobby uses women in a specific manner. Bobby uses women for his personal gain. He uses them as assets when he realizes that they offer certain opportunities for his own growth. As stated in the work, “…Bobby read his future in women; his girls were omens, changes in the weather, and he'd sit all night in the Gentleman Loser waiting for the season to lay a new face down in front of him like a card…” (Gibson 189). Bobby was on between the two hackers who act as the main characters in the story. Bobby Quine is an expert dealing with software issues while Automatic Jack deals with hardware issues. Also important in the story is Rikki who is a girl that Bobby has become infatuated with and wants to use her to get what he wants. Gibson establishes a distinctive insignia by writing about the matrix simulator and techno-centaur disguising Jack Automatic. He also writes about Rikki Wildside and her Zeiss Ikon eyes, boutique and Simstim deck. Gibson does not leave out an aspect of world war III, an event he puts as a past event but featuring a puppet house where women worked as prostitutes for three-hour shifts (Gibson 190). Bobby Quine and Jack Automatic exhibit emotion and vestigial morality as they hack into Chromes computer system. They steal from the child-faced witch who has cold gray eyes and destroy her power base to an extent that she cannot use the power anymore (Cavallaro 90). They also destroy her by completely by sapping off her ability to defend herself against her enemies. Bobby is a schemer and a strategist. Bobby together with jack use their computer literacy prowess to exploit women and take advantage of their powers and strengths. Bobby and Jack use Rikki Wildside because they have realized an opportunity of exploitation in her. Rikki is a prostitute who offers her services at the puppet house to get money so that she could buy a fashionable pair of new eyes. She also intends to make enough money so that she can fly to Hollywood and become a Simstim star. Jack bought a virus-program from Russia from Finn, who also bought it from someone. It is from this scenario that we learn that the person killed the original thief who had stolen the program from the owner. Bobby hacks into Chrome's computer system using that program (Cavallaro 92). He then makes use of the communication web to interfere and change the flow the communication web. Meanwhile jack encourages Bobby to hack into Chrome’s computer. As stated in the story, “…but Bobby was already there, leaning forward to drive the Russian program into its slot with the heel of his hand. He did it with the tight grace of a kid slamming change into an arcade game, sure of winning and ready to pull down a string of free games. A silver tide of phosphenes boiled across my field of vision as the matrix began to unfold in my head, a 3-D chessboard, infinite and perfectly transparent. The Russian program seemed to lurch as we entered the grid…” (Gibson 195) Jack helps Bobby in his schemes taking advantage of the trust and love of women to him, for his gain. Jack betrays his friend Bobby by having an affair with Rikki who is in a love relationship with Bobby. Rikki also betrays her Bobby and Jack by working as a prostitute and trading her body in the puppet house. In metaphorical rapes used by Gibson, Bobby and Jack penetrate Chrome's computer system and Rikki's psychological system, to drain their strength out of them. Both Rikki and Chrome are too busy in their own worlds to an extent that they do not recognize that Bobby and Jack are out to destroy them. Bobby and jack take this to their advantage and make the maximum out of it. Gibson employed an irony in this scene because Chrome has cold grey eyes while Rikki has a pair of beautiful blue eyes yet they are blind to whatever is happening around them (Henthorne 30). Bobby is not afraid of the fact that Chrome is a witch. As the story states, “…Chrome: her pretty child face smooth as steel, with eyes that would have been at home on the bottom of some deep Atlantic trench, cold gray eyes that lived under terrible pressure. They said she cooked her own cancers for people who crossed her, rococo custom variations that took years to kill you. They said a lot of things about Chrome, none of them at all reassuring…” Instead, he perceives her as an opportunity for self-improvement. Jack is not afraid of anything and does not care about the moral side of his actions. Jack is a little bit laid back especially when he realizes that their actions are capable of causing harm. For example, Bobby tells jack, “…‘we just told Chrome we’re an IRS audit and three Supreme Court subpoenas. . . Hang on to your ass, Jack…” (Gibson 196) Bobby does not care whether his actions will harm anybody. He is content with the fact that he is able to gain from his heinous activities and way of treating women. Bobby had developed a desire for something more than love for women. He could not let go of any woman especially when he was bound to gain even the least advantage. As jack, the narrator states, “…But Bobby had this thing for girls, like they were his private tarot or something, the way he’d get himself moving. We never talked about it, but when it started to look like he was losing his touch that summer, he started to spend more time in the Gentleman Loser…” (Gibson 198) Bobby views women as weaker creatures who can be manipulated and taken advantage of without noticing. He believes that despite the fact that women have their own powers and strengths, they are not strong enough to make him doubt his ability to manipulate them. Bobby used to tell Jack of his love for women but Jack knew that he was lying. He knew that Bobby was a schemer who utilized any opportunity presented by women (Trend 57). Jack says, “…He was a past master at the hard fall and the rapid recovery, and I’d seen it happen a dozen times before. He might as well have had NEXT printed across his sunglasses in green Day-Glo capitals, ready to flash out at the first interesting face that flowed past the tables in the Gentleman Loser. I knew what he did to them. He turned them into emblems, sigils on the map of his hustler’s life, navigation beacons he could follow through a sea of bars and neon.….” (Gibson 204). Women were an essential part of Bobby’s life as a console cowboy. Bobby was not obsessed with money. This was not enough reason for him to follow women. He did not value power so that he could exercise rule over other people. This is because he did not like the responsibility that power brought with it. However, Bobby was proud. Pride alone could not provide for his needs. Therefore, he decided that women could do for him. The need for money made him target women. The fact that he had got used to women made it a perfect plan for him. Women acted as his providers in an indirect way. This is the role women played in his life (Olsen 45). Bobby identified women based on their ability to provide for his short-term needs. He viewed them as tools of use in a game. Women were supposed to direct him or provide a means to fortune. Women only lasted for a time that was characterized by their ability to deliver his immediate needs. The narrator says, “…he used women as counters in a game, Bobby Quine versus fortune, versus time and the night of cities. In addition, Rikki had turned up just when he needed something to get him going, something to aim for. So he’d set her up as a symbol for everything he wanted and couldn’t have everything he’d bad and couldn’t keep…” (Gibson 203) For Bobby women were part of life as it progresses. For him, yesterday was not today and today could not be tomorrow. This is the way he viewed women. He only stayed with a woman when his stay was worthwhile for him (Rapatzikou 53). As soon as he identified another opportunity in the form of a woman, he could not let it go. He took it up, used it and damped the opportunity after it because useless. He used women as a means to better and assure his comfort in the future. If he had a woman, then he was comfortable with his future. As jack says, “…Bobby read his future in women; his girls were omens, changes in the weather, and he’d sit all night in the Gentleman Loser, waiting for the season to lay a new face down in front of him like a card…”(Gibson 201). Bobby did not view women as emotional beings. He did not care about the consequences of his actions. This is what kept him going. In conclusion, Bobby was a schemer and a strategist. He knew when to leave a woman for another one. He used women as objects for his future success. Bobby viewed women as opportunities but not as creatures who need love. Despite the fact that he claimed to love them, he did not. Jack helped Bobby in his endeavors. However, he stopped doing it when he noticed that it was not right. Bobby did not see wrong in his behavior. He used women and got onto the next one as soon as she presented herself. Burning chrome, Rikki Wildside and Jane were part of his line. Women were weak and blind beings. The Burning Chrome story by William Gibson is a captivating show of how a man can take advantage of women. It is ironical to refer to women at the puppet house as prostitutes and men like Bobby as schemers and strategists. Works cited Cavallaro, Dani. Cyberpunk and cyberculture: science fiction and the work of William Gibson. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2000. Gibson, William. Burning chrome. United Kingdom: HarperCollins Publishers, 2003. Henthorne, Tom. William Gibson: A Literary Companion. London: McFarland, 2011. Olsen, Lance. William Gibson. London: Borgo Press, 1992. Rapatzikou, Tatiani G. Gothic motifs in the fiction of William Gibson. London: Rodopi, 2004. Trend, David. Reading digital culture. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2001. Read More