Cyberpunk Novel: Concepts and Procedures

Abstract

Nowadays, novel takes great steps in representing our life and the recent scientific developments. For example, the Cyberpunk novel, under study, narrates an outlook for man's future life. It indicates the novelist's fictional ability to construct and integrate art with fantasy science to convince the recipient.  This literary genre emerged in the early eighties. In English, it is known as Cyberpunk which is derived from the letters of cybernetics and punk. Usually, the temporal setting of such novels is future. These novels represent the dark, non-virtuous or corrupt city. A common topic dealt with by the cyberpunk is information technology particularly the Internet. Other topics are artificial intelligence, prosthetic surgery and control in post-democratic societies. A good example is Jamal Hussein's novel “The dead of Baghdad” which deals with the biological change (bi o puck). In this novel, an Iraqi scientist returns to his country after 2003, and develops a gene capable of changing the characteristics of Iraqi society to face the new reality. The scientist is motivated by the loss of his lover due to cancer.

   In sum, cyberpunk novels present the concept of  identity crisis and self-appropriation in the era of superior culture. These novels indicate the importance of “revealing the extent of identity change in view of the various factors that often represent depriving societies of their values ​​and undermining their cultural systems” in a world that produces them. The novels also indicate the importance of the knowledge of the new culture and the intellectual values ​​that bet on the scientific developments and their influences on changing human life.