Roxanne » patchwork girl

Schizophrenic Writing

ccarter3 — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:23:36 +0000

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Schizophrenic Writing

Caitlin Carter

English 101

Professor Meehan

November 21, 2008

Hypertext and technologically influenced literature has a schizophrenic style making the message of the work incoherent and unaccomplished. The work is unaccomplished because it lacks a theme, plot, and a narrator. Particular aspects of the work, such as the storymap layout, the disjointed sentences and boxes, are obscure and incomprehensible. The material aspect of the story overwhelms the work.

Schizophrenia “is a state characterized by the coexistence of contradictory or incompatible elements.” Patchwork Girl is a schizophrenic work, as described by Shelley Jackson in Stitch Bitch. The work is schizophrenic because the organization of the story is inconsistent. The web mapping is difficult to navigate and challenging to understand. The links are continuous, but the cyclical layout is frustrating to use. Traversing through the layout was difficult in addition to the overall challenge of the new medium; these components distract the reader from the actual content in the novel. I was unable to find a plot, a narrator, or a main character in the story due to the constant interruptions of clicking on links, getting lost in the web work, and rereading the same material that appears as I pass through the material.

One can click on the boxes and several links will appear for the reader to choose from; the reader decides what pathway to take when reading the story. The links that appear are connected to the previous box or link in some way, but there isn’t always a coherent and logical pattern that the appearing links follow.

Reading in this manner seems uneven and jagged. The only logical way I found to read Patchwork Girl was through the outline view, where the different links are presented in a list.

Even this method became confusing and difficult, for the links under each category, such as the bad dream section, were unsound and illogical. I feel that the work is insubstantial and its reputation as a measurable work is derived from its innovative material but the overall focus of the work is absent. As Birkerts says “we are taken most by the look of it all-the compact, crisp, high-resolution design that inspires confidence.” The flashy materiality of the work overwhelms the reader, preventing her from grasping the deeper meaning of the novel.

A specific part in Patchwork Girl that I find particularly taxing to read is the bad dream section under designs, where the author lists random thoughts. The writing in this section is a list of random phrases or words, such as “peek a boo” and “puss in the corner,” that have no relation to one another. This section was written as if the main character was dreaming disjointed thoughts. I understand why the author listed the bad dreams in choppy syntax; the writing is metaphoric for the literal scarring of the female monster and the monster’s coarse destroyed body. I feel that the metaphor overwhelms the work, distracting the reader from ever comprehending the deeper aspects of the story, like an overall theme or message.

In my opinion the most important parts of reading are the overall message, theme, and plot of the work. When I read I want to be carried by the story, whereas the point of Patchwork Girl is keep the reader aware of reality. Birkerts view of literature is similar to mine where Jackson specifically wrote Patchwork Girl to contradict the normal perception of the reading experience. Jackson’s view of reading is that one should lose themselves in the work to think beyond self image. Jackson wants to “invent a new kind of self” that “changes directions easily, sheds parts and assimilate new ones.” This relates to the schizophrenic manner of the work. Jackson wants inconsistency in people’s selves; she expresses that view in Patchwork Girl. She wants to go against the life advice received to “focus, choose, specialize,” so she writes a work that opposes all of these things. Birkerts believes that losing individuality while reading is damaging to the person and degrades the work as a whole. Birkerts believes “the soul is that part of us that smelts meaning and tries to derive a sense of purpose from experience.” So if a work doesn’t have a meaning and can’t nourish the soul with purpose, it is a failure. I agree with Birkerts in that a work of literature should send a message to the reader and make her think about life and what the message of that work means to her. In Patchwork Girl, I could not find a message and so I believe the work was not accomplished.

The work, in my opinion, was not accomplished based on my perceptions of what a novel is supposed to accomplish. The way a novel is read is in a linear manner with a clear narrator, plot, and theme. Patchwork Girl does not clearly present any of these key components in the story. Some may call this work bad writing, but maybe it calls for a bad reading. What I mean by bad reading is that when a person reads the work they should think in incoherent terms; they should think of each box as an individual story with an individual message. A person should think of the work as a networking system, where each different box is communicating a different message. The work should be read in spatial terms and the work shouldn’t be read in traditional linear terms, but in a sporadic method. Reading the book in traditional terms, the work fails as a whole with the lack of organization, plot, theme, and narration.

Essay rough draft

ccarter3 — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 06:45:41 +0000

Rough draft:

Hypertext and technologically influenced literature has a schizophrenic style making the message of the work incoherent and unaccomplished.

Schizophrenia “is a state characterized by the coexistence of contradictory or incompatible elements.” Patchwork Girl is a schizophrenic work, as described by Shelley Jackson herself in Stitch Bitch. The work is schizophrenic because the organization of the work is inconsistent. The web mapping is difficult to navigate and challenging to understand. The links are continuous, but the cyclical layout is frustrating to use. Not only is the work itself difficult to use but the overall challenge distracts the reader from the overall message of the story. I was unable to find a plot, a narrator, or a main character in the story because I kept getting distracted by the constant interruptions of clicking on links, getting lost in the web work, and rereading the same material that appears.

Navigating through the work is complicated and time consuming. The first image the reader sees is the story map of the work. In the story map there is a picture of various boxes with several different topics. One can click on the boxes and several links will appear for the reader to choose from; the reader decides what pathway to take when reading the story. The links that appear are connected to the previous box or link in some way, but there isn’t always a coherent and logical pattern that the appearing links follow. Reading in this manner seems uneven and jagged. The only logical way I found to read Patchwork Girl was through the outline view, where the different links are presented in a list. Even this method became confusing and difficult for the links under each category, such as the bad dream section, were unsound and illogical.

A specific part in Patchwork Girl, that I find particularly taxing to read, is the bad dream section under designs; where the author lists random thoughts. The writing in this section is a list of random phrases or words such as “peek a boo” and “puss in the corner” that have no relation to one another. This section was written as if the main character was dreaming random thoughts. I understand why the author listed the bad dreams in choppy syntax; the writing is metaphoric for the literal scarring of the female monster and the monster’s course destroyed body. Although I feel that the metaphor overwhelms the work, distracting the reader from ever comprehending the deeper aspects of the story, like an overall theme or message.

In my opinion the most important part of reading is the overall message, theme, and plot of the work. When I read I want to be carried by the story where the point of Patchwork Girl is keep the reader aware of reality. Birkerts view of literature is similar to mine where Jackson specifically wrote Patchwork Girl to contradict the normal perception of the reading experience. Jackson’s view of reading is that one should lose themselves in the work to think beyond self image. Birkerts believes that losing individuality while reading is damaging to the person and degrades the work as a whole. I agree with Birkerts in that a work of literature should send a message to the reader and make them think about life and what the message of that work means to them. In Patchwork Girl, I could not find a message and so I believe the work was not accomplished.

The work in my opinion was not accomplished based on my perceptions of what a novel is supposed to accomplish. The way a novel is read is in a linear manner with a clear narrator, plot, and theme. Patchwork Girl does not clearly present any of these key components in the story. Some may call this work bad writing, but maybe it calls for a bad reading. What I mean by bad reading is that when a person reads the work they should think in incoherent terms; they should think of each box as an individual story with an individual message. A person should think of the work as a networking system, where each different box is communicating a different message. The work should be read in spatial terms and the work shouldn’t be read in traditional linear terms, but in a sporadic method. Reading the book in traditional terms, the work fails as a whole with the lack of organization, plot, theme, and narration.

Tagged: literature, patchwork girl, schizophrenia, techonology, web

Patchwork Girl

ccarter3 — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 19:10:43 +0000

This week I am actually going to be glogging about my frustrations with the structure and material aspect of patchwork girl. When reading the work the first few attempts left me anxious and frustrated for I was trying to read the work in a linear path, like one would do with any other novel. Then I realized that what I was doing was impossible; the work is set up in a system of interlocking webs that connect topics. To follow in a linear path would be just a wasted effort and would degrade the experience for the work was made in a web like manner. Then I tried just reading random passages and once finished I would just click on the first link that came up in the screen and read that passage. Only after a few passages did I realize that this method just brought me full circle and the reading was choppy and hard to understand. The best method I found to read was through the use of the outline. Its a linear chart that allows one to finish the work in logical steps, without missing important sections of the work. Although one can still jump around from topic to topic but keep track of what was read and not read.

I began to wonder why the work was made so choppy, and at first I thought, disorganized, and messy. Well the novel is supposed to be a metaphor for the creation. One can see how the work was written, the missing links (metaphoric of scars), the bad transitions. The continuous connecting to links occurs until a dead end is reached or the computer directs one to an old link. This seems frustrating and disorganized at first but the process is much like the work of a scientist. One is experimenting with the system trying to discover the best way to make the story, for different ways of reading could result in different messages in the novel. One is trying different stories or different creations. A scientist could develop a different creation each time by how they put the creature together. The whole materiality of the work is a metaphor that echoes Frankenstein only the reader is the creator.

Is this a good thing?

Well it depends on if one thinks that this is just sloppy writing or if it is a very creative approach to writing a novel. I feel that it is a little bit of both. The metaphor is an interesting approach and makes one think about how the work was written, this work is an example of a technotext. Although I also think an important part of reading a book, and yes one can think I am small minded like Birkerts, is that one can get lost in the story and enjoy the experience of reading. I don’t want to constantly be interrupted and directed toward a new link. I want to continue with the story and gradually ease into the next part of the story. This work doesn’t feel like a story to me when reading it. It seems like a combination of various things. The work is more like a glossary to a story. It tells you whats in the story and the background, for example the parts of the body have descriptions of where they come from, but the work doesn’t actually explain how the body parts were put together or how they were found or why they were chosen…just what they are. Reading this work cannot be done in a linear manner and one cannot expect this work to be like a novel, for it isn’t, but I’m struggling with reading this novel and understanding the storyline because I’m constantly interrupted and challenged by the material aspect of the work.

Another point I would like to make is that this work reminds me of other works I have read in the past, such as The Poisonwood Bible.

The Poisonwood Bible-the title lexia in this work has three authors listed, Mary/Shelley and herself (the monster). This reminds me of The Poisonwood Bible because the book is written in various perspectives throughout the novel. A family is sent to Africa to spread Christianity and the book describes each of the characters experiences through their own perspective. The Poisonwood Bible shows the inner feelings and thoughts of each character, I’m still waiting to see if Patchwork girl will share this style of writing. Though I am still questioning if a narrator even exists or if the reader is just picking arbitrary points of the work and pasting them together to create a version of the story and that the reader is thereby determining the narrator of the work.

Tagged: Frankenstein, material, patchwork girl, technology, technotext