Patchwork Girl (hypertext)
Encyclopedia
Patchwork Girl is a work of electronic literature
by American author Shelley Jackson
. It was written in Storyspace
and published by Eastgate Systems
in 1995. It is often discussed along with Michael Joyce's Afternoon, a story
as an important work of hypertext fiction
.
"Shelley Jackson's brilliantly realized hypertext Patchwork Girl is an electronic fiction that manages to be at once highly original and intensely parasitic on its print predecessors."
In Mary Shelley's original, Victor Frankenstein begins the creation of a female companion for his monster, but destroys the second effort prior to completion. In Jackson's version, the female monster is completed by Mary Shelley herself. The woman and her creation become lovers; the creature then travels to America, where she pursues a variety of adventures before disintegrating after a 175-year lifetime. Individual sections also explore the lives of some of the women whose corpses contributed body parts to the creature. This could be viewed as a feminist hypertext project — "If you want to see the whole," one passage reads, "you will have to piece me together yourself." Furthermore, Jackson's use of hypertext "enables us to recognize the degree to which the qualities of collage -- particularly those of appropriation, assemblage, concatenation, and the blurring of limits, edges, and borders -- characterize a good deal of the way we conceive of gender and identity."
's Frankenstein
and The Patchwork Girl of Oz
by L. Frank Baum
.
Jackson's work includes quotations from the novels of both Shelley and Baum, plus material from Jacques Derrida
, Donna Haraway
, and other writers.
Patchwork Girl is categorized as a Borgesian structure of information, due to its non-linearity. The work reflects the hypertext labyrinth originally expressed in Borges' "Garden of Forking Paths", since the choices in the narrative allow multiple paths of experience.
Electronic literature
Electronic literature is a literary genre consisting of works of literature that originate within digital environments.-Definitions:N. Katherine Hayles discusses the topic in the online article...
by American author Shelley Jackson
Shelley Jackson
Shelley Jackson is a writer and artist known for her cross-genre experiments, including her groundbreaking work of hyperfiction, Patchwork Girl...
. It was written in Storyspace
Storyspace
Storyspace was the first software program specifically developed for creating, editing, and reading hypertext fiction. It was developed in the 1980s by Jay David Bolter and Michael Joyce, who presented it to the first international meeting on Hypertext at Chapel Hill in October 1987...
and published by Eastgate Systems
Eastgate Systems
Eastgate Systems is a publisher and software company headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, which publishes hypertexts by established authors with careers in print as well as by talented new authors...
in 1995. It is often discussed along with Michael Joyce's Afternoon, a story
Afternoon, a story
Afternoon, a story is a work of electronic literature written in 1987 by American author Michael Joyce. It was published by Eastgate Systems in 1990 and is known as the first hypertext fiction....
as an important work of hypertext fiction
Hypertext fiction
Hypertext fiction is a genre of electronic literature, characterized by the use of hypertext links which provides a new context for non-linearity in "literature" and reader interaction. The reader typically chooses links to move from one node of text to the next, and in this fashion arranges a...
.
"Shelley Jackson's brilliantly realized hypertext Patchwork Girl is an electronic fiction that manages to be at once highly original and intensely parasitic on its print predecessors."
Plot and structure
Jackson's Patchwork Girl tells the story through illustrations of parts of a female body that are stitched together through text and image. The narrative of the story is divided into five segments, titled: "a Graveyard", "a Journal", "a Quilt", "a Story", and "& broken accents." The goal of the piece is to not only make the reader realize the structure of the Patchwork Girl as a whole but also realize all the pieces that must be "patched" together in order to create one unified structure. Each segment leads down a trail that takes the story in multiple directions through various linking words and images. Jackson uses recurring graveyard imagery in order to continually invite the reader to resurrect Mary Shelley's monster.In Mary Shelley's original, Victor Frankenstein begins the creation of a female companion for his monster, but destroys the second effort prior to completion. In Jackson's version, the female monster is completed by Mary Shelley herself. The woman and her creation become lovers; the creature then travels to America, where she pursues a variety of adventures before disintegrating after a 175-year lifetime. Individual sections also explore the lives of some of the women whose corpses contributed body parts to the creature. This could be viewed as a feminist hypertext project — "If you want to see the whole," one passage reads, "you will have to piece me together yourself." Furthermore, Jackson's use of hypertext "enables us to recognize the degree to which the qualities of collage -- particularly those of appropriation, assemblage, concatenation, and the blurring of limits, edges, and borders -- characterize a good deal of the way we conceive of gender and identity."
Influences
The narrative is based on two books: Mary ShelleyMary Shelley
Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...
's Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
and The Patchwork Girl of Oz
The Patchwork Girl of Oz
The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum, is a children's novel, the seventh set in the Land of Oz. Characters include the Woozy, Ojo "the Unlucky", Unc Nunkie, Dr. Pipt, Scraps , and others. The book was first published on July 1, 1913, with illustrations by John R. Neill...
by L. Frank Baum
L. Frank Baum
Lyman Frank Baum was an American author of children's books, best known for writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...
.
Jackson's work includes quotations from the novels of both Shelley and Baum, plus material from Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
, Donna Haraway
Donna Haraway
Donna J. Haraway is currently a Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, United States...
, and other writers.
Patchwork Girl is categorized as a Borgesian structure of information, due to its non-linearity. The work reflects the hypertext labyrinth originally expressed in Borges' "Garden of Forking Paths", since the choices in the narrative allow multiple paths of experience.
External links
- Eastgate
- Patchwork Girl
- Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl: An Overview
- Review
- Flickering Connectivities in Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl: The Importance of Media-Specific Analysis, by N. Katherine HaylesN. Katherine HaylesN. Katherine Hayles is a postmodern literary critic, most notable for her contribution to the fields of literature and science, electronic literature, and American literature. She is professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Program in Literature at Duke University. -Background:Hayles was...