Cyberpunk and Frye's Theory of Literature
Introduction
Exactly what is it that the characters in cyberpunk literature create? In order to propose what might now be happening, we must look at the history of literature itself to see what has been done.
One of the most definitive ways for looking at the progression of literary types through history is the model set forth by Northrop Frye in Anatomy of Criticism. One focus of Frye's theory is the presence and movement away from myth in various types of literature. Frye looks at the major character (usually, but not always the "hero") in these various types of literary categories, naming them as he goes along. The character "types" are then described according to their varying degrees of power and capability. Since myth is what we are seeking out in cyberpunk, we should see exactly what sort of a myth, and what sort of a character, we are dealing with in cyberpunk literature.
What if we were to discover that according to Frye's theories, a cyberpunk protagonist is an "anti-hero," and that the mythology we see in cyberpunk literature is a part of the "ironic" phase? If this were the case, then cyberpunk would represent little more than isolation and despair in a world of dead gods; this is precisely what many critics have said, and precisely what I disagree with. To prove that cyberpunk leads to a "new myth," one must first show exactly what cyberpunk is not. The framework of literature that Frye lays out in Anatomy of Criticism will demonstrate this very explicitly.
Before dividing literature into categories, Frye first differentiates between comedic and tragic fictional types. This differentiation is key to placing cyberpunk fiction in the scheme of things. The tragic type for Frye represents a sort of literature where "the hero becomes isolated from his society" (35), as opposed to the comedic type, where the hero is incorporated into a society. Derived from Aristotle's Poetics (to which all modern definitions of "tragedy" are inevitably compared), this is not a universally accepted definition of tragedy. Some define tragedy in terms of "suffering or death," and speak of a "tragic flaw" or "hubris" on the part of the major character (McArthur 1049). Still others focus on the "sense that human beings are inevitably doomed" (Holman 505), and leave the rest of the definition very open-ended. I believe we can accept that death, pride, suffering, and the threat of doom all lead to an isolation, of one sort or another, from other human beings. This being the case, all of these definitions point to isolation, a central idea in tragedy and in cyberpunk literature.
Frye's definition of tragedy works, for it fits the cyberpunk world well. Most cyberpunk fiction is not "comedic"; that is, it does not deal with characters who are incorporated into society. It is true in some more recent cyberpunk fiction that there is some sort of a hint at communion of this sort, particularly in Gibson's Virtual Light and Stephenson's Snow Crash. For the most part, however, cyberpunk fiction deals, as stated before, with one or more marginalized, underclass characters (the punks) who either shun or are shunned by society at large. This movement away from society places the majority of cyberpunk fiction in the realm of the tragedy.
Within tragedy, Frye believes that literature has developed, over time, through a number of various stages. In order that we might place cyberpunk fiction into one of these stages, we must look at each in turn. With that said, let us look at the first of Frye's stages - the divine.