Pattern Recognition Theme/Motif Brainstorm

Mystery and/or Spy Genre of Fiction

Pattern Recognition, seems at many times to be mystery/spy novel, or at the very least, incorporates many mystery/spy elements into its story. We see this when the main character, Cayce, is forced to investigate several suspicious events. Foremost of which is when her, or rather Damien's, house is broken into. Although there are no obvious signs of entry, Cayce finds a web page in her computer's browser history which she had never visited. She also notices that a roll of tape which she had placed on a counter before leaving, is now on the floor. This leads Cayce to come to the conclusion that someone had broken into the house at some point, and, upon investigating the phone, that this vagabond was in the employ of her enemy Dorotea. This observation-conclusion type investigation that occurs here is really characteristic of many mystery type stories where the investigator first notices that something is wrong, and through further observation, is able to deduce what happened.

The “break in” further gives the story a mystery/spy feel, because, although we know that Dorotea was behind it, we still don't know anything about the actual trespasser. Will he strike again? What are his capabilities? What will he do if there is a next time? Cayce barricades the apartment, will that be enough to stop him? All these questions are not only asked by the main character, but by the reader as well. Overall, events like the “break in” create a mystery for us to ponder throughout our reading of the story, as well as a feeling of suspense as we wait for the next “break in” to occure.

Globalization commentary

In Pattern Recognition, there seems to be a lot of globalization commentary throughout the story. This becomes clearly apparent when Cayce receives two emails from her friends. One email is from a friend who's in Russia, and details his experiences in that country to date, while the other is from one of her forum buddies who is writing from Japan. Just the fact that Cayce gets these two emails at the same time, from two places in the world, is a form of globalization commentary. Although its not explicitly saying it, the origin of both the emails implies that although these people are physically very far away from Cayce, they are still in close contact with her because they can still communicate instantly by virtue of the internet being simultaneous.

Globalization can also be seen with the existence of the Fetish:Footage:Forum. The forum's admin is from Seoul. One of the daily contributors to the site is in Japan. Cayce is from New York, but is currently residing in London. Again, we have an instance in the story where there are many people conversing with each other on a daily basis regardless of the tremendous distance between them.

On the whole, Pattern Recognition seems to constantly be commenting that, in on our globalized world the distance barrier between people has been removed by institutions such as the internet. In other words, it's commenting that nowadays, being far away can't really separate you from everyone else.