Cyberpunk and Frye's Theory of Literature
Stage 3: High Mimetic
If cyberpunks fall short of being true romantic heroes then, perhaps they fit into the category of "epic hero," the next of Frye's stages. The epic hero, according to Frye, belongs to a class of literature he calls the "high mimetic". The term is derived from the word "mimesis," which is, essentially, "art and literature seek[ing] to imitate and represent life" (McArthur 661). "High," then, refers to the rank and social status of the character/hero. Frye's high mimetic heroes are princes and kings, atop the social ladder. They are superior in degree to other men, but are not superior in kind, being not gods, but men. They are not superior to nature either, and must bow before "the supremacy of natural law" (37).
In tragedy, which is our focus, Frye points to the "fall of a leader...the only way in which a leader can be isolated" (37). Because of this fall from grace and power, the high mimetic hero's morality is often questioned, and the reader must place some sort of moral judgment on the character. Frye suggests that Shakespeare's plays involving nobility are the most exemplary of this stage of literature. Macbeth and Hamlet, for example, both feature a main character of nobility whom the audience respects; each then becomes a victim of his own flaws and "falls from grace". Oedipus Rex, too, is a story of a king fallen from grace, and would surely fit in this stage of literature.
Does cyberpunk fit here? After all, some critics, and even some cyberpunk writers, have dubbed cyberpunk characters "heroes". McHale, as I said earlier, talks about cyberpunk's "adventurer-heroes" (153), and Claire Sponsler talks about "the heroes of Gibson's novels" (634) and then later specifically about his "male 'heroes'" (637), although in this latter comment she justifies the word by placing tentative quotation marks around it.
This tendency to qualify the term "hero" when applied to cyberpunk characters is more prevalent than in discussion of the hero in other types of literature. Csicsery-Ronay tells us that cyberpunks act "as if they are...heroic adventurers" (192), using the term hero comparatively; according to him, cyberpunks must not be heroes, although they may act like them occasionally. Perhaps this is because cyberpunks, like "Gibson's heroes[,] have been 'numb a long time, years'" (Glazer 160, quoting Neuromancer), to the point where they have become "mocked, diminished, lost, feeling...rage, lust, self-loathing, [and] hate" (160). Indeed, they have been altered by their society to the point where we can no longer use the term hero when speaking of them.
Why, then, are critics so insistent upon using that word? If it is because of the "greatness of degree" of a cyberpunk character, we must remember that this "higher degree" is one of ability, not rank. High mimetic characters have higher degree because of their rank, not their abilities. Perhaps critics tend to assume that the protagonist of a story is always a hero. The term "hero" is often "applied to the characters who are the focus of the readers' or the spectators' interest, often without reference to...moral qualities" (Holman 234). I disagree with this tactic; I feel that Frye has more than demonstrated that different terms are necessary for different stages of literature. Even a glance at the first three stages alone shows three vastly different types of "heroes," deserving of different names. As Timothy Leary points out, "[e]very stage of history has produced a name...for the strong, stubborn, creative individual [ie. the "hero"] who explores some future frontier..." (245, emphasis mine). Despite tendencies by some to use the term "hero," I believe we can dismiss the term as it is used by critics. In cyberpunk the term "hero" is used quite often, but it is always used ironically, dismissing the application of the term to cyberpunk characters. At one point in Baird's Crashcourse, for example, the characters get ready for a "night on the town":
"Ten minutes. Get some clothes on, Moke, it's going to be cold. How late's your friend likely to be, Cassie?"Not only is a joke cracked in this passage about another character's alleged ability "fly," a sarcastic reference to flying superheroes, but the characters are not called heroes; rather, they wear "hero clothes." Even these won't do, and they must put on less heroic, "darker" clothing so they can perform their mission well. After all, when cyberpunks venture into the nighttime city to perform criminal acts, the clothes they wear tend to be black and dark gray, not the red, white, and blue of the traditional "superheroes", such as Superman or Captain America. You can be sure that a cyberpunk will never swoop from the air to save a kitten from a tree; cyberpunk characters are more concerned with keeping themselves alive.
"He's not. When Sword says half an hour he means thirty minutes."
"Sure, he can fly," Dosh growled. He began to toss over his wardrobe for hero clothes. "This do?"
"Darker and heavier." (103)
In Clipjoint, the sequel to Crashcourse, Cassie meets up with a mercenary named Wings after a seek-and-destroy mission in the countryside. After running the mission, she tells us that she "sat on the grass several eons more", waiting for Wings to return. When he finally comes back, she calls him her "hero" (70). The term hero might apply here, if Cassie had not told us throughout the first novel, and only a few paragraphs before this encounter, that "Wings and [she] suffer from hate on sight" (69). Her use of the word "hero" here is obviously ironic, as she hates this person. Earlier in the same novel, Cassie meets a man named MacLaren DeLorn, who tells her that he used to be "a war hero, an overrated occupation" (41), and when she asks what "branch of heroism" he majored in, he responds "[g]etting shot" (42). Such talk about heroism is reminiscent of the cowardly Falstaff in Shakespeare's Henry IV Part I, who disdains heroism, honor, and courage as useless, "a mere scutcheon" (V:i 140), a view prevalent in many modern war novels. It should not be surprising to find such themes in cyberpunk novels as well, as cyberpunks are almost always involved in conflict of one sort or another involving supposed "heroism" Obviously, Baird's characters are not heroes of any sort, and they abhor the very thought that they might engage in such activity.
Not only Baird thinks this way, although it is especially evident in her writing; the disdain of heroism is found throughout cyberpunk. In Snow Crash, the lead character is sarcastically named "Hiro Protagonist" - he is anything but heroic, being a thief and mercenary. In Willaims' novel Hardwired, Cowboy longs to be a real "Steel Cowboy" (130), a twisted, internalized version of the classical American hero, but his morals are surely nowhere near as high as those of a real hero:
...There was an ethic in it, clean and pure. It was enough to be a free jock on a free road, doing battle with those who would restrict him... But of late there has been a suspicion that adherence to the ethic may not be enough. He knows that while it is one thing to be a warrior noble and true, it is another to be a dupe. (67)Ethics, it seems, and acting heroically, can only get a cyberpunk so far. Then the rules of expedience and personal concern come into play, and one is forced to do "unheroic things". Countless characters in cyberpunk novels are not of high rank or morality: Case, in Neuromancer (hacker/thief); Chevette in Virtual Light (pickpocket); Rydell in Virtual Light (disgraced ex-cop); Sarah and Cowboy in Hardwired (thieves and murderers); all of the main characters in Baird's novels (thieves, assassins, etc.). In each case, the character is from a lower class origin, or else associates with lower-class people, often criminals. This alone refutes the possibility of cyberpunks being high mimetic heroes. Simply put, cyberpunks are not of nobility, and high mimetic heroes are.