Analysis Of Neuromancer's Molly Millions

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The 1980 's were a time of formidable change for the feminist movement in North America, and one of the ways this can be most strikingly viewed is by looking at the splitting of the feminist movement over the topic of women 's sexuality. In contrast to the second wave of feminism 's early unity over issues such as women in the workplace, and reproductive rights, the end of the second wave, and beginning of the third wave can be seen to have been characterized by the definitive splitting of that unity over in-movement disputes regarding sex and pornography (Hall 255-256). This split can be viewed as having taken root in the 1980s (Hall 256-257), and, in that, William Gibson 's characterization of Neuromancer 's Molly Millions, published in 's characterization of P. Burke who, in "The Girl Who Was Plugged In," is depicted as a victimized, disfigured, suicidal women who is given the opportunity to give up her former identity and become a remotely operated "God" who essentially "lives" to push the mega-corporation GTX 's products (Tiptree Jr 205-206). In P. Burke 's new role as essentially a subversive advertising object , she loses both her identity, in becoming Delphi, and autonomy, in GTX 's control over her actions, to the will of the corporation she is quite literally enslaved to. Both P. Burke and Molly represent marginalized women, with P. Burke being marginalized due to her appearance, which the story 's narrator likens to looking like a "poisoned carcass" and "monster" (Tiptree Jr 228). P. Burke 's role as a victim is something that is repeatedly reinforced throughout the short story from the beginning where she commits suicide due to being alienated by her disfigurement (Tiptree Jr 203-204), to when her life is saved only if she agrees to be co-opted as a object for mass advertisement (Tiptree Jr 205), and then, finally, when she dies and is remembered, by the only person who professes to have "truly love[d]" the "real P. Burke," as the "greatest cybersystem he has ever known" (Tiptree Jr

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