Patchwork Girl

Patchwork Girl by Shelley Jackson is a hypertext, which is a piece of electronic literature that is composed of lexias (which are boxes/screens that have text within them) and images. The reader can open different lexias by clicking on links within the text or within an image, which may be random words within the text. Also, within a box of text there may be numerous words that act as links to different lexias. Hence, the word the reader decides to click determines the pieces of the story he/she ends up reading. In “Gathering The Limbs of the Text in Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl,” George Landow’s definition of hypertext is referred to, which states : “Text composed of blocks of words (or images) linked electronically by multiple paths, chains, or trails in an open-ended, perpetually unfinished textuality described by the terms link, node, network, web, and path’(1997:3)” (Carazo and Jimenez 116). In hypertexts there are numerous paths for a reader to take due to the links within the text. As the reader clicks from link to link, he/she creates a sort of web and, as a result, creates his/her own story with the text he/she views. Also, there may be no distinct ending in a piece of hypertext and it may just be an ongoing web of text.  The possibilities are endless and there are always more links to find on your journey.

            Patchwork Girl is a piece of hypertext which recreates Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein. “On a first reading, Patchwork Girl can be defined as a work that is essentially a re-writing of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a novel in which two of the dominant themes are fragmentation and resurrection”(Carazo and Jimenez 116). The monster in Frankenstein and Patchwork Girl are both unnatural creations that are made out of the pieces of other human beings. Hence, there is a shared theme of fragmentation in both of these stories because the monsters are constructed of numerous pieces, which are stitched together to make a whole. Also, they share the theme of resurrection/life because both Victor (in Frankenstein) and Mary Shelley (in Patchwork Girl) use the pieces of dead humans to create life. Furthermore, the fact that Patchwork Girl is a hypertext highlights the theme of technological development within Frankenstein. “However, Patchwork Girl’s most outstanding quality lies in the fact that it is organized as a special kind of text, which, just like Victor’s creatures, is the end result of certain technological developments”(Carazo and Jimenez 116). Hypertext is a product of the technological development of literature. Both Patchwork Girl and the monster in Frankenstein are results of technological development in science. These monsters may be seen as mutations and unnatural results produced by the advancement of science. Similarly, hypertext is also a form of literature that resulted from the advancement of technology and also can be described as a type of ‘mutation’ and unnatural. A hypertext has the ability to mutate a story by separating it into pieces rather than keeping it in a linear form. Jackson wants to highlight the advantages and opportunities of the results of technological development rather than shun them. She saw the beauty and potential in the monster in Frankenstein and used that insight provided in Shelley’s creation to make her own story using a form of media which also highlighted the power of technological advancement. This new arena for literature provides numerous opportunities to the author and new experiences for the reader. “Not only does hypertext, by its very nature, resist closure and allow play, it also partakes of a condition of mutability, as the product leaves room for changes in format, colour, fonts, cascade, etc. in this sense also, Patchwork Girl is not simply one more text that reflects the aesthetics of fragmentation and hybridity; it is a hypertext that allows for material and technological possibilities that would be unthinkable in a printed version”(Carazo and Jimenez 116).The reader is able to interact with the text and choose links within the story which will help the reader follow his/her own path within the story. Hence, technological developments have allowed reading literature to become more of an interactive and creative process. By using hypertext to create her story, Jackson emphasizes the good in technological advancement and, as a result, she also highlights the positive aspects of the monster Victor creates in Frankenstein.

            The reader has the option to either delve into the story or click on links to move from lexia to lexia or to go in order by using the chart view links.

However, there are a large number of links and sections within this chart and it is much easier to navigate from the “title page” and go on a more chaotic and random path. In “Reading Hypertext: Reading Blue Hyacinth,” the author states that, “There is something fascinating about one’s own reactions to the unfamiliar and having the opportunity to find spatial and place-specific pattern”(Ersinghaus1). Hypertext provides you with the opportunity to be sporadic and create your own web within the text rather than reading the long story in order by clicking on the chart view. The reader should embrace this unique opportunity and embrace the creative process in which he/she can find his/her own way through the jungle of lexias and create his/her own web. You can be in one specific section reading about Patchwork Girl’s journey in America and then you can click a link within the text and go to a lexia about Jackson’s creative writing process. Hence, you can jump from one narrator to the next and one story to the next. “In the case of Patchwork Girl, reading appeals to our demiurgic power and turns readers into a sort of Dr. Frankenstein putting together the different pieces of the textual corpus, and thus creating our own monstrous, aberrant reading”(Carazo and Jimenez 116). Your reading of Patchwork Girl may be very choppy because you are jumping inbetween different sections and none of the texts are really linear to one another. However, you have the power to create connections between these texts because they are all in the same hypertext for a reason and you are given the opportunity to link them together with your mind. You create your own order within the hypertext, your own web of lexia, and, as a result, your own story. The story may seem fragmented and not normal but it becomes a whole to you as you piece/link it together. You find the beauty within the fragmentation of the story like Mary Shelley in Patchwork Girl finds the beauty within Patchwork Girl’s unique build. The opportunity that hypertext provides the reader to become a sort of ‘creator’ emphasizes a major theme in Jackson’s piece. The theme is that every author creates with the ideas of other previous people’s philosophies, thoughts, or creations in mind. A creator builds a masterpiece based off the pieces of other creators. An artist must at first get some sort of inspiration before he/she begins a painting or a piece of literature and this inspiration comes from an already established idea or piece of art. Hence, the fact that the reader is able to create his/her own story within and with the material in Jackson’s hypertext emphasizes this theme.

            Patchwork Girl is setup so that when you open the program, you see an image of a woman’s body. 

The image of the body has little lines within it and you can tell that it is meant to look like it is stitched together. When you click on any part of the image a screen pops up, which is the title page. The title page has five links on it- the graveyard, the journal, the quilt, the story, and the broken accents. 

You can click on any of these links to begin the story and each one will take you to a different image. Patchwork Girl is about a woman, Mary Shelley, who creates a “monster” out of various parts from numerous different people. When you click on “graveyard” on the title page, it brings you to an image of body parts separated in different boxes and the top left corner box is a set of text. 

The reader may click on any box and it will lead him/her to a set of text. Then you have to click on a part of the image in order to start the story and receive a set of text. Once you receive your first lexia (pop-up box/screen with text within it), you then click on words within the text to go to another lexia and continue the story. Each different word you can click on will bring you to a different set of text, which tells a different part of the story. No matter which box you decide to choose it brings you to the same set of text, which reads “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.” Then after you click on a link within that text, it leads you to a lexia which reads “Here Lies a Head, Trunk, Arms (Right and Left) as well as drivers Organs appropriately Disposed. May they Rest in Piece.”

You then have the option to click on of these links, but when you click one of the words which represents a body part, such as the “trunk,” it will lead you to a link box and you must press ‘follow link’. Then Patchwork Girl (as the narrator of the text in the graveyard section) will tell you about the person her ‘trunk’ came from. For example, her trunk came from a woman named Angela and she goes on to tell the reader about how Angela was a dancer. She speaks of the characteristics of Angela's dancer body, which now she has acquired through the possession of her trunk.

Furthermore, you can click on the links within this text and it will lead you to more text about the people from which pieces of her ‘trunk’ came from, such as her breasts from Charlotte and Aspasia. After you read all three of these lexias under the “Trunk” link, when you click on a word on the last one about Apasia, it will lead you back to the lexia with the body parts on it so you may follow the link of another one. The fact that Mary tells the reader in detail about each person she acquired a body part from reveals that Jackson finds it important that the reader knows the history of these people as well as the characteristics Patchwork Girl has taken from them. This continues to emphasize her theme about how people are influenced by the ideas, actions, or thoughts of others. For example, when a child is growing up he/she is influenced by the people around him/her such as teachers, adults, and other kids. The actions, beliefs, and way of thinking of these people influence the personality the child develops throughout his/her childhood. He/she is a product of his/her social environment. Patchwork Girl is actually made up of different people and Jackson goes out of the way to tell us about each contribution every person made to Patchwork Girl because she wants the reader to realize that every person's personality is the product of other peoples' personalities, actions, and ideas. 

       The Journal section, which is one of the five links provided on the title page, brings you to an image of a dismembered woman’s body with a hand in the middle and leg with a head placed above it. 

Once again, you must click on a part of the body in order to get to a lexia of new text and continue your reading. The narrator in the Journal section is Mary Shelley (the creator of Patchwork Girl in the story) and she talks about her relationship with her creation. She tells about how she progressively grows more and more fond of her creation. She develops a deep sense of compassion towards her and she even views her as beautiful.

She compares her to the different colors of Autumn leaves and finds the beauty within her contrast and variety of skin tones.Like the yellow,green, orange, and red leaves that come together to create beautiful images in nature during Autumn, Patchwork's contrasting skin tones create a uniquely beautiful complexion. However, Shelley also reveals that she is scared of the monster she has created because she knows how powerful she is and, hence, what a danger she poses. 

She can go from a happy girl playing to an angry and dangerous monster. But Shelley believes that she owes her guidance in learning how to embrace her 'manifold' personality. She is extremely impressed with what she has created and how much Patchwork Girl develops as a being. She reveals that she believes Patchwork Girl has made the skin,of the others from which she was formed, her own. She emphasizes how the dead skin came alive again so that it could be used to register the thoughts and sensations of Patchwork Girl. 

When Shelley speaks of her relationship with Patchwork Girl, she always goes out of the way to emphasize the beauty and life within her creation. Hence, she is highlighting the beauty in life itself which is the process of creation and the process of creation is a result of both a human's thoughts and sensations. Therefore, Jackson uses Shelley's admirable view of Patchwork Girl to emphasize that the opportunity to live is so precious. Shelley was able to create life out of death and to her that is a very beautiful thing. Now Patchwork Girl has the opportunity to live and create through her feelings and thoughts- to create her own identity. Therefore, there is a theme of resurrection and life within Patchwork Girl and the beauty of the creative process that comes along with the opportunity of life.

    Furthermore, Patchwork Girl becomes a part of Shelley and she feels herself changing the more she is around Patchwork Girl. This change and influence reinforces the theme that people's personalities are influenced by the other people in their lives. When Patchwork Girl enters Shelley's life, she begins to change over time and Patchwork Girl becomes a part of her. This connection with patchwork Girl on her life is made clear when she conducts a surgery before Patchwork Girl leaves for America in which she sews on a piece of her skin to Patchwork Girl and a piece of Patchwork Girl's skin onto her own body.

   When you go to the section entitled Story, you click on it and it leads you to an image of the body of a woman. However, this image is unlike the image in the other sections because it incorporates much more white than black and has a type of swirl image on the left side.

When you click on this image, it leads you to a lexia where Patchwork Girl is talking. She begins describing herself such as how physically awkward she is and how she feels as if she belongs nowhere. Yet, she also does reveal that even though she does not belong anywhere, she has still established a feeling of comfort in the world and accepts the fact that her place in the world is nowhere exact- but everywhere. 

She does not settle but she continues to go on and is able to ‘take long strides’ and ‘strip and walk unencumbered.’ Hence, Patchwork girl expresses that she has discovered a sense of freedom and identity even though she is still not accepted within society and does not fit in. But she has welcomed her status as a misfit like her ‘brother’ (the monster in Frankenstein) and she openly accepts it. Then you have to find words within the lexia that serve as link in order to get to another lexia. Also, there are excerpts from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein one in which the monster begs Victor to create a friend for him because no human being will associate with him. The monster expresses that her just wants a partner that is like him in order for him to be able to experience affection and, as a result, be more like a human. However, Victor refuses to create another wicked monster and struggles within himself when he attempts to.

 The difference between the monster in Frankenstein and Patchwork Girl is that Patchwork Girl goes out into the world looking for her identity and accepts the fact that she is different. While Victor's monster, can not handle being in the world and goes mad/crazy and begs from a companion. 

Patchwork Girl left Mary to go to America and create her own special identity through experience. She needed to go out into the world and create her own unique experiences which would mold her personality and give her sort of a background/history. Patchwork Girl goes to America and meets different people and has emotional experiences with these people. For example, she first meets a man named Chancy (who she finds out is really a woman) and she becomes very attached and close to Chancy. It was clear that they developed a deep affection, a form of love for one another. However, when Chancy found out what Patchwork Girl really was, it was clear that this love was not probable. As a result, Patchwork Girl would experience an emotional tide and hurt and sadness. 

Through this experience with Chancy, Patchwork Girl learns more about herself. She learns that she is too prideful and she expected to have Chancy's trust without earning it. She realizes that if she had told her what she really was in the first and openly trusted her, that they would not have to end their relationship. Therefore, Patchwork Girl was able to go through an emotional experience with another person and learn and grow from it. Hence, she was indeed using her experience in America to construct her own individual identity.

  When you click on the Quilt section on the title page, it leads you to the same image of a woman’s body as the one when you click on the Journal section. However, the foot is still in the middle of the body but the leg and the head are separated from the body and placed in two opposite corners of the image box. When you click on any part of this image, it leads you to a lexia in which Mary talks about all the various sources she had to collect or refer to in order to create her girl. Also, there is a list of cited documents underneath the main text from Mary Shelley, Frank Baum, and a book about Enlightenment Art and Medicine. 

These references reveal that Jackson did not create her story Patchwork Girl from just her own ideas and creative instinct. She used other sources and ideas in order to ‘patch’ together her own story. Hence, this lexia also highlights that Mary Shelley (the character in Patchwork Girl), like Jackson, had to refer to ‘philosophical documents, machines, geometry, dreams, and even ‘magic lanterns’ when creating her own monster. Therefore, Shelley’s creation reflects science, philosophy, the imagination, and, most importantly, the unlimited possibilities these sources hold. Mary Shelley combined and explored the endless possibilities provided by each each of these ways of creation and of viewing life and made her own creation. Furthermore, when you click on a word within the main text, it leads you to the same main text without the cited documents underneath and a dotted line instead. Therefore, you must click on a section of the dotted line in order to go to a different box of text. “Another case in point would be the lexia dotted line. Because of its border-like quality (“a permeable membrane”), the image of the dotted line is used to explore the interaction between connectedness and separation…”(Carazo and Jimenez 118). A very important theme presented in Patchwork Girl is that of fragmentation and connectedness which is represented by the symbol of a quilt and Patchwork Girl’s body itself. The first set of text that was displayed when I first clicked on the dotted line told about how Shelley collected pieces and consulted books when trying to create her girl. Yet, she did not know exactly what to make of her until she observed her grandmother’s old quilt. 

The next time I clicked on the dotted line it lead me to a lexia which continued the story from the last text I read. It told about how a quilt was a good object to base her creation off of, because the girl would not be too proud due to the fact that she was made of many different colors that did not mix well together.

She sees this process of creating life similar to the process of creating a form of art or of literature. For example, in a set of text she discusses how instead of putting all her text in one space, she spread it out into more ‘manageable’ sections.

Each part of Patchwork Girl is a paragraph, a different piece of writing, placed in its own section rather than with the other pieces. Yet, they are all placed in the same writing space (her body) but they still maintain their own identities. Mary reveals that being able to construct her piece of art in this way allowed her to create a very ‘well-shaped girl’. She has many dimensions, many paragraphs, and she is not simply just one long boring story. Yet, she is a collection of individual stories that each is special and can be combined with the others to create one amazing story even though they all are strong stories on their own. When you observe a quilt, you look at each little patch one by one and want to know the specific story and history of each patch. However, by the time you have heard all the interesting biographies behind these patches; you have already combined the stories into one whole. You will remember them all as the combined story of the quilt. Yet, each story adds a different quality to the quilt and you put all these qualities together to create a general personality of the quilt as a whole. After a while of clicking on the dotted line, you begin to come to lexia which do not exactly make sense to you. They go along with the basic story of the creation of a patchwork girl, but characters you do not know begin to appear. However, you begin to realize that some of this text must be from the documents cited in the beginning of the section. For example, the character of the Glass Cat comes in and the cat speaks about the basic requirements for beauty and how patchwork girl will hate herself for being made of patches. 

Unless you have read all the cited documents, you may not know where this text is originally from. “This is made up of two parts in which the same content is repeated, the only difference being that in the second part the quotes are not documented or presented with different typographies as they are in the first part. It indicates a further step in the idea of “unceremonious appropriation” which questions the notion of literary property”(Carazo and Jimenez 117). The fact that the reader does not know where the text is from emphasizes the theme that when someone creates something whether it is art or literature, they incorporate ideas that are not exactly their own during the process. However, they do not put a citation next to every idea that came from another author or a piece of art because they have made it into their own creation. Jackson uses the quilt section to highlight that all new ideas and advancements in technology or art come from an idea or inspiration found in a former idea/piece of work/ or piece of technology. One must take the time to observe current ideas, technology, or art in order to find something within it which has the potential to be transformed into something even greater. Therefore, truly advancement in this world whether it is in technology, science, or art is a web of ideas. These ideas are all connected and built off of one another. Hence, it is just like hypertext because hypertext also forms a web of lexia through the process of clicking from one link to the next. Also, Jackson emphasizes that a single creation may be based off inspirations found within numerous arenas. For example, she references a document about art and philosophy as well as Frankenstein which is science fiction and other literature. Hence, she reveals that her influences for her hypertext came from art, philosophy, science, and other literary pieces. Inspiration and ideas are everywhere to be seen and people must use their imagination to discover them and not limit the places they look but instead, just never stop looking. 

IF Blog

In my experience with interactive fiction, I came to the conclusion that it was more of a game than a story. However, all the pieces I read did have literary elements and also were considered stories. IF stories have plots, characters, a main goal/objective, and an overall theme like a regular text story. Yet, the player also has to become a character and interact with the game by putting textual input in the game in order to receive output from the computer program which also is in the form of text. Hence, even if the player is not exactly figuring out a puzzle, he/she is still interacting with the piece and trying to reach an ending like when trying to complete a game. Ramsberg states in his piece “A Beginner’s Guide to Playing Interactive Fiction” that interactive fiction is something in between a computer game and a book. He reveals that the player actually becomes the main character of the story through entering text or input to the computer (Ramsberg 2). In order to understand interactive fiction one must be willing to interact with the piece and, in most games, be ready to use his/her mind to figure out the puzzle or the puzzles that are incorporated. Ramsberg asserts that the way you go around solving the puzzle/puzzles may impact how the plot unfolds within the piece as well as the outcome. He asserts that it is possible that an IF story can take more than one path and it depends on the choices the player makes (Ramsberg 2).Therefore, in some pieces it is like the player determines the plot and the outcome of the story. Hence, not every IF has a puzzle to figure out but every game is like a journey the player goes and makes his/her own choices to reach an outcome.

 Every IF piece has a main goal/objective and the player’s job is to figure out how to achieve that goal. The best way to achieve the intended goal is to read the IF output text very carefully and look for little clues or hints. Hence, the text/story is the most important part of the IF piece because it is the reader’s key to successfully solving the puzzle and reaching the basic goal. However, even if the piece does not have a puzzle to solve, the reader still must figure out what choices to make, what input to provide, and how to get the output or specific ending you want from the computer program. For example in the IF piece Galatea, the player immediately enters and IF room with a talking statue and stays in the room talking to the statue the entire game. However, the player quickly figures out through her snappy remarks/output that she is hard to please. If the IF player decides he/she wants to make peace with Galatea and receive a pleasing ending, he/she will try to use input/text that he/she thinks will result in positive output from Galatea.

In a way it is like a game because you have to use the output that Galatea provides you with to start a new conversation. Hence, you find hints in Galatea’s replies that give you information to work off in forming a new question for her and to keep a positive conversation going with her. Therefore, it is kind of like a puzzle because you have to figure out what to talk about with her, which is basically what she wants to talk about and what interest her most. The only way you can find out what interests her the most is by observing her outputs carefully for hints/details and reactions which reveal how she feels about what you previously said.

When I was playing Galatea, I had a lot of trouble getting her to respond with a positive attitude and to be interested in what I was saying. For example, I tried asking her about life and she responded by talking about a man. Therefore, I realized that she was really interested in this man so my next question asked about him in general. When I first said ‘ask about him,’ she responded with very little text and I was quite disappointed. Yet, I said ‘ask about him’ again and I got more of a response out of her. She told me more about herself and the life she experienced living with the man who constructed her. At the same time, she revealed how she felt towards him for hiding her away and then selling her. Hence, I found a subject to talk about with her by first asking a simple question about life and then searching her output for a subject to ask her about next. Fortunately, she ending up being interested in the subject I chose from her text to ask her about. It was my goal to get her to speak more than one sentence and to start providing me with details of her life story.

 My goal was to discover as much as I could about Galatea and to somehow find ways to keep her interested and to keep her in an ongoing conversation with me. As a result, my ultimate goal was to develop a positive relationship with Gallatea through establishing a successful, life revealing conversation with her. Therefore, this IF piece was interactive and like a game because I had a goal, I had to make specific choices about what I asked her or told her, and I had to look for hints within her text in order to figure out what to say next to achieve my ultimate goal.

            I think the most obvious literary elements in Galatea is character development and character description of her. While playing the game, you are able to develop a character for Galatea. You develop a character for her by analyzing the facts/background she tells you about her life and by the way in which she interacts with you/the attitude she responds with. By simply asking her about her home and her owners now, I easily can conclude by her responses that she is hurting inside. I can tell that she is very resentful towards the man who made her and then simply sold her away. Also, I can tell that she wishes she wishes she could interact with other people and function like a normal human being. She is lonely and desperately yearns for companionship and an identity.

When she talks about home, she talks about how she never really got to see the countryside or much at all of anything outside the home itself. Then she mentions how she was packed away and shipped off in a crate. Hence, this response reveals how she wishes she could go out into the world and experience it because she has been locked up her whole life. Also, by mentioning being shipping off from her home, she reveals how it truly does upset her that her creator gave her up. Therefore, this information about her life led me to conclude that she is a very sorrowful, resentful, and emotional person. Furthermore, when she discusses how her owners do not talk to her and that no one really does, I was able to conclude that she felt as if no one cared about her and she was just going to be lonely and ignored for the rest of her life. Hence, I also concluded that all she really wanted was someone to ask about her and her life and simply show that they were interested in her. As a result, the character I developed for her was a character that may snap and have attitude at times and only wants to talk about her. However, she is this way because she is hurting inside by being traded by her owner, by being ignored by everyone now, and by not being able to experience the world like everyone around her. Therefore, I was not just able to construct a character for her but I was also able to put together her life story with the facts and statements she provided me. There is a story behind Galatea and the player has to find a way to unlock as much parts as possible in order to really understand Galatea.

            The IF piece clearly has a theme and I think it is that you do not really know what you have until it is gone. People should cherish the lives they are blessed with and enjoy every little experience. For example, when I asked Galatea about love, she replied saying that people are idiots when they are in love and that it is not worth it basically. The player can tell that she may respond ‘harshly’ towards love but really she would do anything to be able to experience it even though she knows that it might hurt her a lot in the end. In a way her feelings toward love represent her feelings toward experiencing life. Everyone knows that his/her life may be difficult at times but in the end life is really a blessing and the good experiences mostly make up for the bad experiences. Galatea is a statue who cannot go anywhere or experience anything really; she barely has the chance to communicate with others. Even though at times people resent their lives and hate everything about them, everyone is blessed with the opportunity to live while Gallatea is stuck there by herself as a statue.

            The game element that contributes to a theme is the fact that you have to keep asking about her and finding topics that she will think are interesting, which most likely refers to her own life. The fact that the game part requires you to focus on her and her life emphasizes that sometimes you have to focus on the hardships of other people and what they cannot do or what they do not have in order to realize how precious what you do have truly is. The IF Galatea communicates that one should cherish his/her life and sometimes in order to do that one needs a reality check. Realizing the horrid or sad that lives that other people live or in this case do not live is sometimes the key to realizing the importance of your own life and taking the time to enjoy every little part of it and not taking it for granted. When I began to talk about myself and my own life in the game, Galatea became uninterested. I was clearly losing the game by not asking about her like I previously had.

As a result, I lose because I am sitting there crying and wallowing to her about the death of my sister Jenny. If I really want to win the game, I have to keep the topic focused on her. She loses interest and the game ends. Hence, the ending goes along with the theme that even though life does have some bad experiences, you have to cherish all the good and the life you live in general. Galatea was not even able to experience life and I am sitting there complaining about my own life. Galatea would probably even settle with being able to experience losing someone, just to have the chance to have a life experience in general. Therefore, the story and game elements work together to communicate the greater theme of the story. The game part of the IF piece is to keep Galatea interested or the game will end. The story part of Galatea is learning as much as you can about her in order to develop a character for her through her background history and exposed feelings/emotions. Hence, by keeping her interested and in conversation, you learn more and more about. Therefore, by playing the game correctly, you are able to keep the story of her life going and obtain more details about her to help you understand her better. By developing a better understanding of Galatea and her character, you are able to observe the pain she undergoes by not being able to live and experience and, as a result, you are able to better understand the overall theme. Hence, the game and story elements work together and you need both to discover theme and develop the literary elements (such as character) in the IF piece.

      Furthermore, you choose your own plot and sequence of events by the particular input you provide and, therefore, by playing the game you construct a literary element (plot).You as the player control how the conversation unfolds, how she reacts, and how the game ends. in “The Pleasure of the Text Adventure,” Montfort discusses how the plot in IF is not linear because the reader creates the plot and is able to control how small episodes within the story play out. However, he reveals that the author of the program does know what plots are possible for the reader/player to create because the programmer provides the numerous options to make; you just make the choice of which one (Montfort 7). He emphasizes that the ability to create your own sequence of events provides the player with the ability to discover messages on his/her own through this interaction and it becomes a creative/innovative process. Therefore, by playing the game of an IF piece, you the player is also creating a sequence of events by the particular choices he/she makes and going on a particular path which will provide a certain theme based on the choices the reader makes.

My If is about a character who is trying to find a little girl he was babysitting. The babysitter will be in a lot of trouble if the child is not found quickly because the parents are entirely obsessed with her and would freak out if they found out she was missing or she told them you weren’t watching her for such a long period of time. The girl is five years old, and she has a twin sister too. The two kids and the babysitter were watching Cinderella in the living when one of the girls went missing. There are three rooms- the living room, the girl’s room, and the parent’s room - the parent’s room is not really developed yet though. Summer ( the sister) is in the living room watching the movie, Lucy (the dog) is on Summer’s bed in the girls’ room (also can be conversed with).  The IF player basically can examine all the objects mentioned in the Living room and the Girls’ room to look for Sophia. The IF player also can say ‘talk to’ either Summer or Lucy 3-4 times each and get different responses.

When writing my piece of interactive fiction, I enjoyed being able to create numerous options for the reader. For example, I enjoyed creating a lot of pieces of scenery and different items with detailed descriptions. I wanted to give the player a lot of places to look for the little girl. I found it fun imagining what items would be in a little girl’s room and where she would hide. Therefore, it was enjoyable creating as many items as I could possibly think of that a little girl could fit inside. Also, I liked being able to create Sophia and Summer’s bedroom and set it up how I imagine the perfect room for a little kid.

I made their room so that it had two pretty, pink beds with a beautiful wardrobe in between them. I also created a huge two-door closest that took up an entire wall and was full of toys. Then one wall was entirely covered by a wide window with a pink toy box underneath. I felt like an inertial designer at the time and I found the process of creating the girls’ room very enjoyable. I wanted to create a room that fit the personalities I imagined for the two little girls. I wanted it to be princess-like and perfect looking. I imagined the two little girls to be very well-mannered, spoiled, and mature for their age. However, they really just want to be little kids and be able to carelessly play around. Also, I wanted to create items that would be interesting to look in while searching for Sophia. While looking in them, the reader would also be able to find more items that revealed things about the two little girls. For example, the closet was full of toys and hinted that the little girls secretly played in their closet where they could act like children behind ‘closed doors’.

          However, by being able to create numerous rooms with numerous items within them in which a child could fit or hide, I was able to provide the player with a sense of frustration. When reading a book about a babysitter looking for a child, you do not experience the true sense of frustration he/she experiences unless you are searching the rooms yourself. Also, you do not understand how truly frustrating it is when you are really trying to find someone and no one will help you or give you any hints. For example, when the player speaks to the sister Summer, she provides absolutely no help and just talks about how she will play with Summer later and has no idea where she is. The player experiences how truly annoying and upsetting it is to be ignored even by a child when all you want is some help finding someone. Finding Sophia becomes really important to you because it is the goal of the game. Therefore, when you get ignored by Summer and search through numerous items with no luck, a true sense of frustration is established.

          I found it quite easy to create scenery, rooms, characters, and conversations by simply following the IF manual. However, it was really important to follow the manual exactly and make sure you had all the proper punctuation. If you even forgot a period, it would say you had an error. However, I really never had a problem with missing punctuation because I was very careful and slow when typing in all my text. The problems I did experience were when I played my own game and could not find the characters I was creating. For example, I created a dog named Lucy and I made it so that I could talk to her because I was becoming so desperate in my search. However, when I was in the Living Room, I kept saying ‘talk to Lucy’ or ‘examine Lucy’ and it kept responding that ‘there is no such thing’. As a result, I kept recreating Lucy and retyping in the same exact text. However, I finally figured out I cannot see her or talk to her until I enter the Girls’ Room, which is the room I placed her in.

          I experienced many limitations because I am not very knowledgeable in IF so there were many things I wanted to do and was unable to do. For example, I wanted to make Lucy (the dog) follow me as I walked throughout the Girls’ Room, yet I had no idea to do it. I really wanted to make Lucy the tool to finding Sophia somehow but I was just simply unable to make her be able to move around and really do anything. Therefore, my lack of knowledge of using IF constricted my creativity. If I was writing this story, I could easily have made the dog follow the babysitter around and then make the dog disappear all of the sudden. As a result, the babysitter would have realized the dog must have found something more interesting and by going on a search for the dog, the reader would also be on a search for Sophia. I clearly stated that the dog and Sophia were quite attached and, therefore, the dog most likely would be with Sophia somewhere. It would be much easier to track down a dog than Sophia because I could have used clues such as paw prints, dog toys, or soft barking noises.

     I think I would have had more fun writing this as a story because I came up with the story in my mind and then was so limited by my inability to do anything with IF due to my lack of knowledge. The IF process is just much too complicated and it actually becomes hard to express yourself unless you really know how to work the program. I truly respect anyone who is able to complete an IF game and make it challenging to the player because it is really a hard process. I find it enjoyable to play around with and create a mini-story but creating a full game that is actually complex is way too hard, frustrating, and time consuming.

E-poetry Blog

　   The e-poem “The Best Cigarette” by Billy Collins uses a lot of vivid imagery and while all of the slideshow images play through, a man with a monotone voice recites the poem. In “A Quick Buzz around the Electronic Poetry” by Deena Larsen, she defines e-poetry as poetry that incorporates text and sensory information to convey meaning. Then she defines this ‘sensory information’ as the use of symbols, form, movement, imagery, navigation, and non-linear structure(http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/currents/fall01/buzz.html). In “The Best Cigarette,” Collins creates movement and form with his imagery. The e-poem begins with a moving road and the reader feels as if he/she is traveling down the road. Hence, Collins is able to use imagery in conjunction with motion to put the reader in the position of the main character of the poem. As this image plays out, the narrator recites “There are many that I miss/having sent my last one out a car window/sparking along the road one night, years ago”(Lines 1-3). The image displays the environment that surrounded the character when he smoked his last cigarette. Furthermore, by making the road move, Collins makes the reader feel as if he/she is traveling down this road with the character as he throws his last cigarette away and is moving away from the cigerette with him.   However, the possibilities that powerpoint poses did provide me with the tools to reveal the true beauty I wanted to communicate through the poem. I was able to use letters that looked classy and elegant- Edwarian Script. Also, I was able to use beautiful images of the fall to show the readers what I was envisioning as I wrote the poem. In addition, being able to control the order, the placement, and the appearing motion of the words helped me create beauty through the words themselves. For example, in my fourth slide I placed the words representing colors with the specific colors in the tree and then was able to make the colors fade into the tree as well. Also, the appearance of the line 'a beautiful tree' placed in white, elegant writing against the bark of the tree is a beautiful image.

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   In addition, as the road moves away from the reader, Collins plays with the form of the road by making the lines in the middle of it move in a snake-like motion. As the lines begin to take on a new form, they just as quickly fade away into smoke and the road disappears. After the road fades away, only a screen of smoke is left behind and this smoke continues the snake-like movement of the road lines while slowly rising upwards.
   
   
   In this rising puff of smoke, a naked woman appears and just as quickly fades away into the smoke. Immediately after she fades away, a new image appears out of the rising smoke, which is the image of a cigarette burning on both sides. The cigarette burns until it is just a pile of ashes in the form of a cigarette and then it fades away into the very same smoke. While the image of the women and the burning cigarette appear and fade, the narrator recites, “after sex, the two glowing tips/now the lights of a single ship;at the end of a long dinner/with more wine to come”(Line 5-8). The quick snapshot of the naked woman in the smoke reveals the memories and thoughts in the mind of the character as he remembers his last sex experience.

 Most importantly, the image of the cigarette that follows the image of the woman displays the association of smoking and sex in the mind of the character. Hence, the way Collins puts these images in order, one after the other, helps highlight how the memories of the character quickly trigger the thought of the cigarette he smoked that was associated with that memory. Therefore, when Collins makes the image of the woman fade into a cigarette, he is communicating that the character relates good times with smoking.

Furthermore, it is hard to imagine a cigarette representing “the lights of a singe ship,” when one simply just reads the text. However, the image of a cigarette burning on both sides and then transforming into one burnt cigarette successfully displays how two glowing tips can truly become “the lights of a single ship.” Therefore, Collins is able to use the imagery of a cigarette while creating the motion of burning on both sides to help the reader see the ‘ship’ the character envisions as his cigarette burns away. The reader most likely would not have been able to create such a vivid and descriptive image in his/her mind by just reading the text.

        The voice of the narrator also could not be recreated on the page and adds so much more to the tone of the poem and the reader’s understanding of the meaning of the poem. The tone of the narrator’s voice is monotone and emotionless, which highlights the characters serious state of mind when he considers his past love and relationship with cigarettes. His tone communicates to the reader that he places great importance on the role cigarettes played in his life and the happiness they brought to him. His lack of emotion or change of pitch throughout the entire narration implicates that he truly does miss the memories he associates with smoking and the happiness it brought him and he is lacking this happy emotion in his life and he yearns for it to return. Hence, Collins is able to use tone of voice to further the reader’s understanding of the character’s state of mind and how he is feeling throughout the poem.


     By being able to understand the character’s mindset better through sound and imagery, the reader is able to understand the overall meaning of the poem better by putting together all the messages that each of these elements convey. Larsen states that images are necessary elements in some works and that without the images, the words alone would not be able to convey as much of a strong meaning/meanings (http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/currents/fall01/buzz.html). She emphasizes that word and images may highlight and prioritize different meanings and, hence, the more than one or an even greater meaning is able to be communicated through the use of imagery along with word. In “The Best Cigarette,” the narrator recites, “Then I would be my own locomotive,/trailing behind me as I returned to work/little puffs of smoke,/indicators of progress”(Lines 24-27). When I read these lines or hear the narrator recite these lines, I come to the understanding that while he types, smoking a cigarette helps him concentrate. However, when I see the picture of the typewriter blowing smoke out the edge as it is moving across the screen, I understand that he is able to progress with his writing because a cigarette provides him with a sense of hope and energy to move forward like a train.

He needs the temporary happiness the cigarette can provide for him in order to successfully compose literature. Therefore, the imagery and motion of the typewriter adds to/expands the meaning that the words themselves are able to communicate and helps the reader reach a clearer understanding of the theme itself. Furthermore, at the end of the poem the narrator recites “That was the best cigarette,/when I would steam into the study/full of vaporous hope”(Lines 31-33 ). These lines communicate that smoking gives the character a sense of hope while he works. However, the fading transition of one image to the next in a cloud of moving smoke throughout the poem emphasizes that each cigarette is temporary and the hope/happiness it brings fades with it. This is why the narrator has an emotionless voice, because his happiness was temporary with each cigarette he smoked and now he no longer possesses it. For example, the fading of the wine glass into a chandler and then into smoke exemplifies and highlights this theme of temporary happiness/hope that the monotone/emotionless voice also displays.

Therefore, it is clear that one is able to connect the messages the imagery, motion, form, and sound communicate to clarify an overall theme or an image can greater clarify the message a sound communicates.

        The e-poem “Dear E.E.” written by Lori Janis and illustrated by Ingrid Ankerson is more of an interactive poem than “The Best Cigarette.” Memmott states that the poetic emergence or performance of an e-poem requires the participation of a user to unlock the computational processes encoded by the author. He goes on to speak of the playability of e-poems, which means that the reader must interact with the elements of the e-poem in order to unleash the meaning the author created through computational processes (Memmott 294). The first slide reads “dear e.e” and it transitions into the next slide without any user interaction. The second slide is composed of sloppy writing that reads “I dreamt of you last night. “You had snuck into my apartment ( I don’t even have one) to re arrange it all;” There is no proper use of capitalization, the writing is sloppy, and it look like it was composed quickly and without effort.

 The writing fades and transitions into the next slide, which is also composed of scribbled words that read “though there are no recollections of what it may have been before you-” This sentence is a continuation of the first sentence, has the same style of writing, and the ‘you’ is bolded. The sentence fades and flashes in and out while outlines of images (such as a couch) also flash in and out. Furthermore, while these first three slides play a fast paced and upbeat musical beat plays throughout.

When the words and flashing images on the third slide fade out, a moving slide of a stream of household appliances appears. In this lineup there is a table, couch, a window, a refrigerator, and a sink. Also, the previous upbeat music gets overpowered by a louder, more commotional musical beat. The poem becomes interactive because the user must click on the household appliances to unleash the rest of the text of the e-poem. When you click on the couch, the text reveals that the main character does not even remember what the couch looked like but remembers there being one. When you click on the desk, it turns into a bed and the text says that the wooden legs were used as legs for a blue bed.When you click on the refrigerator, the text asks why someone would place the fridge in front of the window and block the sunlight. When you click on the sink, the texts says that the sink is next to the door. The only appliances that really move up and down are the door and the sink as the slide continues moving.

     

Furthermore, the user must interact in order to get to the last slide of the e-poem. The user must click the word ‘wake up’ in the right hand corner of the second to last side to get to the next one. After the reader clicks on this word, a slide of meshed blue, green, and white appears and a peaceful dong sound quickly plays. This last slide describes the characters of both the author and the illustrator of the e-poem. Lori lives a very accomplished and established life while Ankerson’s description is all in one sentence that reveals she is unorganized and is the opposite of Lori. The last side gives the reader the information to put the rest of the slide together.

Therefore, the interaction of the words, music, and images of the e-poem is important in order to make sense of the entire poem because they all add a little more detail to the message being established. Memmott states that alone elements may lack poetic capability but in relationship with one another harmonics emerge (302). For example, at the end of the poem the peaceful ending dong sound combined with the serene mix of blue, white, and green along with the text work together in harmony to communicate a message. The message is that one must take life slow, establish peace, look at the serene beauty of the world, and these suggestions are exemplified by Lori, which the text reveals is an inspiring Buddhist. In addition, all of these elements interact with the other texts, sounds, and images in the poem to create a contrast between a fast paced, stressful life and a peaceful, slow paced life. The fast moving objects, sloppy writing, combined with the loud and overly commotional music can give the user a headache. This greater interaction between the last elements of the last slide and all the elements of the previous slides adds to the overall theme. Furthermore, it clearly creates a contrast between the two lifestyles so that the reader can better understand why one lifestyle is more preferable to the other.

     The poem is about Ankerson’s fast paced, unorganized, and messy life. Hence, the writing in the first two slides is sloppy and looks as if it was scribbled quickly, because it represents Ankerson’s lack of effort and lack of time to write a proper sentence. Furthermore, the fast musical beat represents the rapid pace her life moves at. In addition, the moving slide of appliances best represents her lifestyle and characterization. The music becomes full of different tones and sounds like a big commotion, yet still is fast beat. This tone represents that clutter in her life, all the daily activities and duties and how little time she has to complete all of them in a single day. In combination with this tone, the pace at which the appliances move coordinates with the rapidity of the musical beat. Furthermore, the appliances are not organized properly- the sink is next to the door and the fridge in front of the window.

     The hidden texts that one must click to discover, in addition to the images and music that automatically appear, are just as an important of an element in piecing together the overall meaning of the e-poem. Interaction is key to unlocking the hidden message of the poem and Memmott is correct- one must play an e-poem to discover its meaning as a musician plays an instrument to reveal a song (294).The fact that the text asks why someone would block the sunlight with the fridge indicates a greater message. The message is that there is so much commotion in Ankerson’s life that she never takes the time to truly enjoy something like the sunlight shining through her window. In addition, the text reveals that she had to take apart her desk to fix her bed that was falling apart, which reveals that she had no time to fix it properly and now has no desk as a result. Hence, the text that is revealed by clicking on the household appliance reveals a lot about Ankerson’s character and the message being communicated through the poem. Memmott emphasizes that one must interact with the collection of ideas presented through the various applications in an e-poem in order to understand the contents of the poem (300).

   When writing my own poem "The Impulse," I found it very difficult making it into an electronic poem. At first, I found it enjoyable finding backround images for each slide that reflected the thematic imagery of fall within the poem. However, it was difficult adding text over these beautiful backround images, because sometimes there were no fonts that did not clash with the backround and, as a result, the font ended up difficult to read. For example, in my last slide I wanted to do one color text, which was black but the text did not show up well against the backround image.

As a result, I had to use both black and white in order for all of the text to be readable.

Also, I found it very irritating when I had to continuously enter words in seperate text boxes in order to give each a different entrance path/or effect. For example, in the image above I had to put the word 'follows' in a different text box so that it would appear before the other words in order to emphasize its importance in the stanza. In addition, I had to seperate the word 'together' into different text boxes in order to get it to move in seperate directions in order to show the contrast of seperation of the colors in comparision to the combination of the colors in one entity, as shown in the intitial appearance of the word 'seperation' before it splits in different directions.

Therefore, even though finding the right color texts and having to open a million text boxes while creating my e-poem, there were advantages to not writing on paper. For example, I did enjoy the fact that I had the tools a create beauty through motion, font, and placement of the text in order to exemplify the theme of pure beauty throughout my poem. Personally, I think I was more inspired when I wrote the poem down on paper and read the words outloud. However, I do think it is amazing how I was able to bring the words to life without reading them aloud but instead through electronic elements and beautiful imagery. Yet, I do prefer poetry on the paper because it gives the reader the option to create his or her own images, sounds, and other associations and has the ability to be more creative. When reading an e-poem, the user already has all of the freedom to create taken away from them mostly, even though it is enjoyable for the e-poem creator. It is truly fun thinking of ways to make what you imagine in your mind come to life on powerpoint as the creator and you have all the tools right infront of you. However, I think literature is a gift given to the reader to open onhis/her own not to already have been opended for them.