Goldbug Team
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"The Gold-Bug," by Edgar Allan Poe
"The Gold-Bug" is a story of William Legrand, a man who searches for the buried treasure of the infamous Captain Kidd off the coast of South Carolina. Legrand embarks on his journey after being bitten by a bug made of solid gold while with his faithful servant, Jupiter. He then asks for the aid of the story's unnamed narrator in his journey for the lost treasure. The journey itself is told retroactively by Legrand after the treasure has been found. Legrand goes into great detail explaining how he deduced the treasure's whereabouts and especially how he solved a cipher found on a piece of parchment. The cipher and Poe's interest in cpytograms account for some of the story's popularity. "The Gold-Bug" was published in June 1834 for a competition held by Philadelphia's Dollar Newspaper.
Link to Wikipedia for biographical information
Full text of The Gold-Bug by Edgar Allan Poe
Initial Brainstorming for Project
- Interactive/ Flash Game
- to critically engage readers with the text
- mood music to create gothic feel
- similar to It'll Be the Death of Me or other interactive games where the reader can make choices and engage with the text
- convey themes of logic vs. reason, gothic, cryptograms/ solving puzzles, different narrative perspectives (narrator, Jupiter, Legrand, user)
- Hypertext/ New Media Interpretation
- Flash introduction
- mood music to create gothic feel
- create a reading of the text that leads reader from one page to the next
- utilize Dreamweaver to create hypertext
- Gold-Bug Team to create a text from the point of view from narrator
- reader to assume the position of Legrand
- cryptogram begins to be solved as the reader goes through text
- create images through WordsEye so they will all look similar
Project Concept
Our project aims to guide the user through the basic plot of Edgar Allan Poe's short story, The Gold-Bug. The reading experience is enhanced with creative images rendered using WordsEye and selected excerpts from the text. Our aim for the project is to help users better understand the story, invite them to creatively imagine the world of the text, illuminate concepts and themes that might not otherwise be salient, and allow the user to navigate the text in a digital medium. The resulting hypertext is neither meant to be a straightforward rehashing of the story nor a comprehensive critical analysis. It is instead a learning tool for people not familiar with the story and a critical, academic exploration and interpretation of Poe's work.
Why Poe?
We deliberately chose this Poe story for the following reasons:
- The story makes interesting use of cryptography. The elements of gaming and interacting with a text that this introduces seemed especially suitable for a digital interpretation.
- While Poe receives a lot of attention on the internet, there is very little work done on this specific story in a hypertextual or interactive manner.
- We found the elements of extreme logic in battle with possible insanity that run rampant in Poe's work particularly suitable for exploration in an audio/visual, interactive environment.
- Poe himself is a figure with canonical weight who manages to maintain popular influence in contemporary literature and literary analysis.
Final Project
Team Members
Annotated Bibliographies
- Hayley's Annotated Bibliography
- Alex's Annotated Bibliography
- Alice's_Annotated Bibliography
- Taylor's Annotated Bibliography
