William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition: Finding Human Agency in a Commodified Techno-Culture

This paper addresses the commodification of the human experience in late capitalism as depicted in William Gibson’s novel Pattern Recognition and the potential of technology in helping the human subject in evading commodification. The novel shows how the virtual world and the physical world can become mutually supportive in allowing the characters to search for meaning, pattern and wholeness by using technology as an empowering force for the human subject while managing to avoid being consumed by a powerful capitalist market. The novel’s protagonist’s success in using technology as a humanizing force proves that humans can thrive within its sphere without necessarily being absorbed or overwhelmed by it.