Neuromancer

Neuromancer

by

William Gibson

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Linda Lee Character Analysis

A twenty-year old woman from the Sprawl, who lives in Chiba, where she meets Case. The two date, and Case, a drug addict, hooks Linda on drugs, which she continues to use after their break-up. When Case reencounters her at the beginning of the novel, he notes that she looks sick and strung out. Linda steals some of Case’s data in order to fund a ticket out of Chiba back to the Sprawl, but some of Julie’s agents kill Linda and take the RAM instead of purchasing it. Although she is dead, Neuromancer manages to save Linda’s consciousness and transfer it into the matrix, building a home for her on a digital beach, where she meets Case, who has been temporarily trapped in cyberspace, one last time. Neuromancer hopes to use Linda’s reconstructed personality to convince Case to stay in the matrix forever, but, although he loved her, she is not enough of a draw for him to stay. Beyond her interactions with Case, Linda’s personality, personal history, and motivations remain unexplored in the text.

Linda Lee Quotes in Neuromancer

The Neuromancer quotes below are all either spoken by Linda Lee or refer to Linda Lee. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4 Quotes

This was it. This was what he was, who he was, his being. He forgot to eat. Molly left cartons of rice and foam trays of sushi on the corner of the long table. Sometimes he resented having to leave the deck to use the chemical toilet they’d set up in a corner of the loft. Ice patterns formed and reformed on the screen as he probed for gaps, skirted the most obvious traps, and mapped the route he’d take through Sense/Net’s ice. It was good ice. Wonderful ice. Its patterns burned there while he lay with his arm under Molly’s shoulders, watching the red dawn through the steel grid of the skylight. Its rainbow pixel maze was the first thing he saw when he woke. He’d go straight to the deck, not bothering to dress, and jack in. He was cutting it. He was working. He lost track of days.

And sometimes, falling asleep, particularly when Molly was off on one of her reconnaissance trips with her rented cadre of Moderns, images of Chiba came flooding back. Faces and Ninsei neon. Once he woke from a confused dream of Linda Lee, unable to recall who she was or what she’d ever meant to him. When he did remember, he jacked in and worked for nine straight hours.

The cutting of Sense/Net’s ice took a total of nine days.

Related Characters: Henry Dorsett Case, Linda Lee, Molly
Page Number: 59
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

Case brought the gun around and looked down the line of sight at Deane’s pink, ageless face.

“Don’t,” Deane said. “You’re right. About what this all is. What I am. But there are certain internal logics to be honored. If you use that, you'll see a lot of brains and blood, and it would take me several hours—your subjective time—to effect another spokesperson. This set isn’t easy for me to maintain. Oh, and I’m sorry about Linda, in the arcade. I was hoping to speak through her, but I’m generating all this out of your memories, and the emotional charge….Well, it’s very tricky. I slipped. Sorry.”

Case lowered the gun. “This is the matrix. You’re Wintermute.”

Related Characters: Henry Dorsett Case (speaker), Wintermute (speaker), Julius “Julie” Deane (speaker), Linda Lee
Page Number: 119
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

He bought a mug of Carlsberg and found a place against the wall. Closing his eyes, he felt for the knot of rage, the pure small coal of his anger. It was there still. Where had it come from? He remembered feeling only a kind of bafflement at his maiming in Memphis, nothing at all when he’d killed to defend his dealing interests in Night City, and a slack sickness and loathing after Linda’s death under the inflated dome. But no anger. Small and far away, on the mind’s screen, a semblance of Deane struck a semblance of an office wall in an explosion of brains and blood. He knew then: the rage had come in the arcade, when Wintermute rescinded the simstim ghost of Linda Lee, yanking away the simple animal promise of food, warmth, a place to sleep. But he hadn’t become aware of it until his exchange with the holo-construct of Lonny Zone.

It was a strange thing. He couldn’t take its measure.

“Numb,” he said. He’d been numb a long time, years. All his nights down Ninsei, his nights with Linda, numb in bed and numb at the cold sweating center of every drug deal. But now he’d found this warm thing, this chip of murder. Meat, some part of him said. It’s the meat talking, ignore it.

Related Characters: Henry Dorsett Case (speaker), Julius “Julie” Deane (speaker), Linda Lee, Molly, Lonny Zone
Page Number: 152
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

He refused her arms, that night, refused the food she offered him, the place beside her in the nest of blankets and shredded foam. He crouched beside the door, finally, and watched her sleep, listening to the wind scour the structure’s walls. Every hour or so, he rose and crossed to the makeshift stove, adding fresh driftwood from the pile beside it. None of this was real, but cold was cold.

Page Number: 235
Explanation and Analysis:

“No,” he said, and then it no longer mattered, what he knew, tasting the salt of her mouth where tears had dried. There was a strength that ran in her, something he’d known in Night City and held there, been held by it, held for a while away from time and death, from the relentless Street that hunted them all. It was a place he’d known before; not everyone could take him there, and somehow he always managed to forget it. Something he’d found and lost so many times. It belonged, he knew— he remembered—as she pulled him down, to the meat, the flesh the cowboys mocked. It was a vast thing, beyond knowing, a sea of information coded in spiral and pheromone, infinite intricacy that only the body, in its strong blind way, could ever read.

The zipper hung, caught, as he opened the French fatigues, the coils of toothed nylon clotted with salt. He broke it, some tiny metal part shooting off against the wall as salt-rotten cloth gave, and then he was in her, effecting the transmission of the old message. Here, even here, in a place he knew for what it was, a coded model of some stranger’s memory, the drive held.

Related Characters: Henry Dorsett Case (speaker), Linda Lee
Page Number: 239
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Neuromancer LitChart as a printable PDF.
Neuromancer PDF

Linda Lee Character Timeline in Neuromancer

The timeline below shows where the character Linda Lee appears in Neuromancer. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Addiction and Dependency Theme Icon
Ratz tells Case he saw “your girl,” Linda Lee, last night. Case responds that he doesn’t have a girl, and leaves the bar.... (full context)
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Addiction and Dependency Theme Icon
Case remembers meeting his ex, Linda Lee, in an arcade. He’d immediately fixated on her, and they went home together and... (full context)
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Addiction and Dependency Theme Icon
Back in the present, Case is high. He spots Linda Lee, who joins him at his table, offers him a cigarette, and asks how he’s... (full context)
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Seeing Linda fills Case with “lust and loneliness.” Watching her shiver and sweat, Case worries about her.... (full context)
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Addiction and Dependency Theme Icon
Returning to his coffin in Cheap Hotel, Case realizes Linda Lee stole the RAM in his Hitachi, important files that she will probably sell. He’s... (full context)
Chapter 2
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Suddenly, Linda Lee rushes past Case. Reflexively, he runs after her. A boy trips him and tries... (full context)
Chapter 9
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
Case enters the arcade, he finds Linda Lee playing a game, and puts his arm around her and kisses her. She tells... (full context)
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
Linda offers to take Case home, but the arcade begins to crack and vibrate, and she... (full context)
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Wintermute/Deane apologizes to Case for conjuring Linda, explaining he’d tried to communicate through her, as he’s “generating all of this out of... (full context)
Chapter 10
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Case struggles to sleep, mulling over his encounter with Wintermute, and Linda’s death. He thinks of Deane’s ginger candies, and realizes Deane ordered Linda’s death, probably manipulated... (full context)
Chapter 11
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
...“keep too good track of [his] women,” which angers Case. Zone/Wintermute then admits he killed Linda, but asks how much it really matters, arguing that she stole from Case because she... (full context)
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
...tells Case she’s going to kill Riviera. Case tells Molly about the Lonny Zone and Linda Lee. Molly wonders if Wintermute is trying to get him to hate something, too. Case... (full context)
Chapter 12
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Addiction and Dependency Theme Icon
...of rage” inside of him. It’s new—he began to feel it when Wintermute had recreated Linda Lee in the arcade, and then taken her away, “yanking away the simple animal promise... (full context)
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Addiction and Dependency Theme Icon
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
...at the sky, Case watches the constellations of the hologram shift into the face of Linda Lee. Looking around at the other people on the street, he sees that they can... (full context)
Chapter 15
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
...Molly looks at the woman’s face; through the simstim, Case sees the face transform into Linda Lee and back. He realizes Molly cannot see this, as it happened only on the simstim. Molly... (full context)
Chapter 20
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
Case recognizes the woman in the shack as Linda and curses the AI who recreated her for him. He also recognizes that the “burning... (full context)
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
Case turns towards Linda, telling her, “you aren’t anything.” He recognizes this isn’t real, that he’s flatlining in a... (full context)
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
...afternoon, Case walks down to the water and throws his clothes in to clean them. Linda approaches him and advises him to wash his shirt and jeans in a freshwater pool... (full context)
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
That night, Case and Linda talk and eat. This Linda has Linda’s real memories. She tells him about visiting his... (full context)
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
As Linda talks, Case draws closer; soon they’re kissing, and then they’re having sex. The sensation he... (full context)
Chapter 21
Addiction and Dependency Theme Icon
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
...feels like he’s on drugs, although he hasn’t taken anything in this world. He asks Linda who told her he would come, and she explains it was a boy she met... (full context)
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
...and says, “I am the dead, and their land.” He urges Case to stay with Linda, and to forget they’re both ghosts. (full context)
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Case doesn’t want to stay; Neuromancer tells him it’s his choice. Linda touches Case’s shoulder and asks him to stay, but Case walks away, towards the music,... (full context)
Chapter 23
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
...or the number of food packets in the bunker. He can see the virus through Linda’s eyes, a black ghostly shark. Neuromancer appears beside him, and remarks that, even if can... (full context)
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
Case asks Neuromancer why he killed Linda, but Neuromancer explains he didn’t, and neither did Wintermute. Instead, Neuromancer read the patterns of... (full context)
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
...song.” Back in the matrix, for a second, Case is back in Chiba, he feels Linda’s hand against his back, but it fades away. (full context)
Chapter 24
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Addiction and Dependency Theme Icon
...sees small figures on the edge of a mountain of data: a young boy (Neuromancer), Linda, and himself. In the background he hears “the laugh that wasn’t laughter,” which likely belongs... (full context)