Determinacy, Indeterminacy, and the Romantic in William Gibson

Postmodernisms reject both realism/antirealism and determinism/indeterminism as western ontological binaries. In this context, William Gibson can be read for residual modes of thinking: his fiction invokes western ontological terms, in conjunction with “romantic” patterns of depth and surface. Determinism and indeterminism form a simple narrative binary. Romantic strains oppose both determinism and indeterminism by affirming meanings outside the realm of signs, giving rise to a triadic narrative pattern of opposition and overlap. At the same time, this narrative pattern reintroduces traditional modes of representation, where ‘%neaning” is finally located within depth, ambiguity, and metaphor. (RS)