Part 1

"She dug a pack of Yehuyuan filters from an ankle pocket -"

[HER, REF]

On first reading, the Yeheyuan filter and the ankle pocket are referential codes - cultural references that the reader can pick up on and interpret in line with his or her cultural life experiences. But the culture William Gibson is writing about is nowhere to be found on planet Earth. No reader of Neuromancer will instinctively recognize the "Yeheyuan filter" or even the "ankle pocket." Gibson makes these two references clear enough that we may interpret them and move on with the story, but, while they seem to read as cultural references at a structural level, they also pose a question and constitute, in a sense, an enigma: in that way, cultural references in "Neuromancer" serve both as referential and hermeneutic codes.

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