Click Click Click BOOM.

OH, Hypertext!

I can honestly say that hypertext stories are nothing like I imagined. Before working with Patchwork Girl, I was under the impression that the story would be easy to navigate through and I, the reader, would simply click on different links within the story and would be brought to the next part, in some logical progression. Clearly, I was totally 100 percent WRONG. Hypertext, to me, is like walking through a strange forest alone. I felt as if I was progressing toward the road ( or the end of the story) but each time I thought I was moving forward, I would find out that that was a whole other path that I needed to take to reach my destination. I was turning in circles, trying to mark my path, but everything just started to mesh together.
As I've mentioned in my previous posts, I don't do well with "searching" for the meaning of the story. I don't want the books I read to be a quest; if I wanted to incessantly explore for the ending, I'd go out on a quest for the Fountain of Youth or big foot. I'm sure I would put my time and efforts into something more meaningful than the message behind Shelly Jackson's Patchwork Girl. No offense, Shelly, but you're just not my cup of tea. But enough of my cynical tone and anger-induced remarks!

I must say that Hypertext, regardless of my personal disdain for the medium, is the perfect way to convey the meaning behind Patchwork Girl. The story is about Patchwork Girl's fragmentation and inability to be whole; that is exactly what hypertext is like. The reader must search for the different parts of the story to be able to make sense of the story as a whole, just like Patchwork girl is comprised of many parts and is struggling to be complete.

Before delving into Patchwork Girl, I think it is important to clarify the connection between this piece and Frankenstein by Mary Shelly. Shelly Jackson, the writer of Patchwork Girl, used Frankenstein as her inspiration for writing this piece. One of the main differing portions of the two works lies in the creator's relationship with the monster. In Frankenstein, the creator sees the monster as a hideous, terrible creature and he regrets ever creating him. In Patchwork Girl, Shelly, who is the creator of the "monster" sees her as beautiful and idolizes her. She eventually falls in love with her and the two have a romantic relationship.

When the story Patchwork Girl first opens up, the reader is shown a black and white image of a naked women. She is standing facing the reader with her arms out. Upon close examination, the reader can see that she is fragmented into different parts. This image is very fitting with the title of the story and directly displays that Patchwork Girl was indeed made out of many different parts.
When the reader clicks the image, the title page comes up. The line which designated the author(s) reads " By Mary/Shelly, & Herself. This is done to indicate to the reader that this story was written by both Mary ( Mary Shelly) and Shelly ( Shelly Jackson) as well as Patchwork Girl. Of course, this is not to be taken literally, but rather figuratively. The reader has the option of then clicking on " a graveyard", " a journal", " a quilt", " a story" or 'Broken accents". This is where the clicking and discovering begins.

I personally read through these titles and decided that " a story" seemed like a good place to start. Upon clicking it I was presented with an image of the same black and white woman as the entry page, but she was all broken apart; her head was attached to her leg ( which was detached from her body) and her hand was in her stomach.

This is where I began to think that this story was going to be quite odd. What did this even mean? At this point, I had no experience with the story, but I assumed that this cut-up image had to do with the title of the story in some way. I then clicked the image and was brought to some type of description of a sexually ambiguous character. We learn that this character " has lived in this frame for 175 years...by another reckoning, I have lived many lives." Ok, well, this was starting to make sense a little bit...patchwork girl, related to Mary Shelly's story of Frankenstein,...maybe this wasn't going to be so bad. As I continued to move throughout the piece, the story begins to make sense, but not necessarily in order. There were certain examples where I would read an entire passage that made no sense to me. It was only after exploring the piece further that I was able to have that "light bulb" moment where the previous passage fell into place and I was able to place it into the context of the story.
According to Carrazo and Jimanez, "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. " They describe perfectly through this statement how mailable the story Patchwork Girl is. Everyone is able to have a different experience with the work; in fact, the same reader can experience the piece multiple times but never have the same presentation of the story.

As I moved on through Patchwork Girl, some of the reoccurring themes/ the plot of the story became evident to me. Below are some examples of meaningful text and the conclusions I came to after reading them:

Unfortunately, this screen shot came out blurry, but it reads: "Burdened with body parts, your fingernails packed with mud and chips of bone, you slink out of the graveyard. A kind of resurrection has taken place". This was a clear reference to the connection between Patchwork Girl and Frankenstein. I was unsure exactly how the stories were intertwined at this point, but this is where I made the connection.

This screen shot documents the creation of the creature. This is where I began to understand that the Patchwork Girl was made out of many different parts, from various people...how fitting for her name!

This screenshot shows the relationship between Patchwork Girl and Mary. They obviously seem to have a very loving ( and somewhat sexual) relationship. At this point, they are caressing each other and the texts leads the reader to believe that they are engaging in sexual acts. There are elements of feminism in Patchwork Girl as well; clearly, this relationship in the story is homosexual in nature. Jackson breaks many traditional gender roles in the story and seems to enjoy presenting a female-empowerment theme. This is extremely different than Frankenstein and his relationship with the creature; there is much hatred and disdain in that relationship.

Ultimately, although I don't particularly enjoy Hypertext, it does have all the traditional elements of a story. The plot is deeply developed, although it does not occur in a traditional manner. The reader must search for the answers rather than have them clearly presented. The characters are also deep; the relationships they have are multi-faceted and complex. This also occurs in a traditional story. As previously stated, Hypertext really does add to the theme of the story; incompleteness. Hypertext is the perfect medium for Patchwork Girl and although this story would translate into a traditional medium and still make sense, the search of the hypertext adds to the meaning.

In " My Body, a Wunderkammer" the author ( Shelly Jackson) describes her body and all the different parts. This is similar to Patchwork Girl and the medium of hypertext lends itself well to the theme. Bodies seem to be reoccurring in her work. Both works also have sexual elements; My Body talks about masturbation and Patchwork Girl alludes to a sexual relationship between characters. The way the story occurs is through parts; in My Body, each body part has a story associated with it. The reader can click words such as " The Fingers" and get the back story on the author's fingers and why she values them.

Hypertext is certainly an interesting way to present a story. Although I don't prefer it, I can see how it can be appealing to some readers. They are actively engaged in the story the entire time, picking and choosing their path, whereas in a traditional story they are simply along for the ride. The reader has say as to how the story will occur. Although they can't PICK the story, like in IF, they can participate in some manner.

Sources:

Jackson, Shelley. Patchwork Girl. Watertown, MA: Eastgate Systems, 1995. CD-Rom.

Jackson, Shelley. "My Body — a Wunderkammer." Electronic Literature Collection. Web. 02 May 2010. .

Sanchez, Carolina. Carazo, Palencia. Gathering the Limbs of the Text in Shelly Jackson's Patchwork Girl. Atlantis, 2006.