Time for a Hypertext Blog

Before taking Electronic Literature I was unfamiliar with the style of writing that I would come to known as hypertext. Hypertext is a new way of storytelling in which the basic elements of writing fiction are combined in a new way to create a non-linear path through a story. In the secondary text Gathering the Limbs George P. Landlow is quoted as defining hypertext as, “Texts composed of blocks of words (or images) linked electronically by multiple paths, chains, or trails in an open-ended, perpetually unfinished textually described by the terms link, node, network, web, and path”. In hypertext there are groups of words/images that are clickable links that transport the reader to other parts of the story; these different parts are known as lexica. The existence of these lexica makes it virtually impossible to pinpoint an exact beginning and end of a hypertext story. Unlike a traditional novel in which the author guides the reader from the beginning to end and the plot is the same each time, in a hypertext the author grants the reader the freedom to piece together their own story. A reader may encounter the same hypertext several times and never find the same path through it twice.

The hypertext which we most heavily focused on was a piece called Patchwork Girl, written by a woman named Shelley Jackson. Jackson was inspired by Mary Shelley’s classic novel Frankenstein to put a new spin on the beloved story. In Jackson’s hypertext there are three narrators; Shelley Jackson, the creator of the hypertext who reflects on writing the story, Mary Shelley, the real life author of Frankenstein who in this hypertext is the character responsible for creating the monster, and Patchwork Girl, the Frankenstein-like monster created by the character Mary Shelley. In this hypertext the reader is responsible for clicking through the lexicas to uncover the story of the creation of the monster, the monster’s journey to find her identity, and Jackson’s journey through creating the hypertext.

When first opening Patchwork Girl the reader is presented with an image of a woman’s naked body which appears to be dissected into different pieces. The reader must click on this image to be brought to the main screen of the piece. The reader then has several options because there are five major sections of the hypertext. The body of text; which explores the intricacies of hypertext in comparison to the way that humans are made up, the journal; which is the journal of Mary Shelley and her experiences in creating the monster Patchwork Girl, the story; which is a combination of the modern adventures of Patchwork Girl as well as original text from Shelley’s Frankenstein, the graveyard; which explains the origins of all the parts that make up Patchwork Girl, and the crazy quilt.

In this story one of the main themes deals with the monster Patchwork Girl journeying through the world trying to find an identity. Because she is made up of the leftover parts of different people she does not feel that she belongs anywhere at all. She is unattractive, although she wishes she could be beautiful, she is always falling apart, and she does not feel as though there is anything about herself that is truly hers. Another central part of the story explores Shelley Jackson’s journey through creating the hypertext. These things are related because the style of writing that is hypertext is very similar to the character of Patchwork Girl. Both Patchwork Girl and the work of hypertext are created by the compilation of other things. A limb of Patchwork Girl’s, much like a single lexica of the hypertext, would not mean much by itself. You need all parts of Patchwork Girl, the monster and the hypertext, to create something relevant. Also, the characters of Jackson and Patchwork Girl share a common feeling of being lost. In one lexica Jackson describes the difficulty of writing a hypertext, “Assembling these patched words in an electronic space, I feel half blind, as if the entire text is within reach, but because of some myopic condition I am only familiar with from dreams, I can only see the part most immediately before me”. While Jackson feels that she is lost because she cannot grasp all the elements of her story at once, Patchwork Girl feels equally as lost because she feels the same way about the elements of her identity. This specific lexica is also a reassurance for the reader that happens to stumble across it, because it can be comforting for readers like me who feels lost within a story to know that, at times, the author feels equally as helpless.

It is because of this that Patchwork Girl would simply not be as effective if it was written in any other style than hypertext. We can compare it to the original story Frankenstein, an extremely similar story written as a traditional novel. The hypertext allows for the reader to put together the pieces of the story as they see fit. One of my favorite quotes from Patchwork Girl comes from the section graveyard and is a quote from the character Patchwork Girl, “I am buried here. You can resurrect me, but only piecemeal. If you want to see the whole, you will have to sew me together yourself”. This really defines the importance of the nonlinear story when illustrating a “non-linear person”. The freedom of the reader to explore Patchwork Girl as their own leisure, curiosity, interest makes the work more personal. Although Shelley’s Frankenstein is masterfully written and widely enjoyed it lacks the emotional connection to the reader that Patchwork Girl provides. Frankenstein is the story of the man who created a monster and the monster that a man created. Patchwork Girl is a story of a woman who created a monster and a monster who tried to make more of herself. This difference is certainly felt, if not necessarily seen, by the reader which encounters Patchwork Girl. It is also a great addition that the ‘monster’ in Patchwork Girl is able to express feelings and emotions available for the reader to see, which is not the case in Frankenstein. It allows for the reader to come to the right conclusions of how the ‘monster’ feels without having the guess based on actions.

I find that this style of writing is also extremely appealing because it is very realistic, and in a way it mimics the way that memory works. When reading a traditional novel a reader might find that there are parts of the story which seem irrelevant because the plot often documents events chronologically rather than by importance. This is not the way that the memory of humans works. Usually a person remembers things that are significant and forgets those things which are not. Memories are not stored chronologically so that one needs to filter through events before or after to find a specific one. In a piece such as Patchwork Girl, which deal heavily with the memories and experiences of characters like Jackson, Shelley, and Patchwork Girl, the use of hypertext works exceptionally well because it is so realistic. It is similar to being in the consciousness of a character, stealing a look at the memories and experiences which are important to each individual character. When viewed in this way each lexica is important because the mere fact that it is included means that the memory or story is emotionally significant. Some readers might find that hypertext can be confusing, but I feel that it is easy to become willing to sacrifice comfort for the poignancy of the piece that the hypertext provides.

Citations

Jackson, Shelley. Patchwork Girl. Watertown, Ma: Eastgate Systems, 1995. CD-Rom.
Sánchez-Palencia Carazo, Carolina, and Manuel Almagro Jiménez . "Gathering the Limbs of the Text in Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl." ATLANTIS 28.1 (2006): 115-29.