Taylor's Essay
From English 194 Wiki
Interpretive Essay
Literature Plus has provided UCSB’s Literature and Culture of Information students to take literature and understand, create, and re-think texts under new paradigms, specifically in a new media environment. The Gold-Bug team’s goal was to guide the user through the basic plot of Edgar Allan Poe's short story, The Gold-Bug. Through the final creative project, the readers’ experience is enhanced with imaginative images rendered using the application, WordsEye.com and selected excerpts from the original text. The teams’ goal is to help users better understand the story, invite them to creatively imagine the text through visual imagery, illuminate concepts and themes that might not otherwise be salient, and allow the user to navigate the text in a digital medium. The prototype of the hypertext that the Gold-Bug team created is neither meant to be a straightforward rehashing of the story, nor a comprehensive critical analysis. Instead, the team hoped for the text to be a learning tool for people, who are not familiar with the story. Additionally, the team aimed to create a critical, academic exploration and interpretation of Poe's work.
Explanation of Concept
The team thought that The Gold-Bug would be an interesting story to study for several reasons. First of all, understanding or learning a 19th century text in a 21st century context could elucidate new possibilities with the text, in terms of visualization, games, models, and hypertexts. Primarily, the story can be understood in a new light with the addition of images and sounds, as these aspects can further enhance the mood, or effect, that Poe aimed to create. The team believed that an interactive text would deliver multiple understandings, and new, unimagined opportunities.
Next, Poe’s theory of the short story appeared to be another aspect of significance. An article, “Poe’s Critical Theories”, claims that:
More than any other principle, Poe emphasized the unity of effect that one should strive for in any work of art. For example, words and phrases that occur and re-occur in Poe's various critical writings include the following: “to affect,” “the totality of impression,” “the unity of effect,” “the novelty of the effect alone,” and “the single effect,” and these are only selected examples of his repetition of the value of this principle (“Poe’s Critical Theories”).
Essentially, Poe believed that a work should not only be read in one sitting, but that it should also have a specific “effect”, or an intended emotional response of the reader. Poe excelled in creating eerie, Gothic stories that contain suspense and mystery. Due to the fact that Poe tried to make this sort of effect, re-imagining an online text with sounds and images would be sure to enhance this intended effect.
Finally, the team felt that a short story, rather than a play or novel, would be a more reasonable piece of literature to recreate in its entirety, as opposed to taking a piece or excerpt of a work. The Gold-Bug team believed that The Gold-Bug would be a realistic text to recreate, as the team hoped to materialize the mood Poe creates without losing too much of the text.
Interactivity & Poe
When researching Poe, the Gold-Bug team found multiple online projects regarding both Poe’s life and works. What was most interesting was the interactivity that the online environment offered. The interactivity provided by each of the researched sites appeared to be an innovative way to both teach audiences and to engage them. In The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative, Abbott claims that:
The unique narrative experience that late twentieth-century electronic resources have enabled is, I think, a direct consequence specifically of the hypertext function. “Hypertext narrative” is that subset of electronic narrative that makes use of this capability. It uses the linking function to allow readers to link to other virtual spaces in which almost anything can be found (Abbott 28).
Abbott’s statement reflects a key point of interest to the Gold-Bug team – a unique experience through linking pieces of stories together through virtual space. The appeal of interactivity laid the foundation for the teams’ hypertext.
Benefits of the hypertext
Although the hypertext that the students of English 194 created did not allow the reader to have the ability to make choices or take different paths, as many hypertexts do, the text did enable certain possibilities unavailable with the original text, and prototyped future possibilities for the story. The hypertext, first and foremost, allows users to visualize and read the story through a different medium. One advantage to this is the ability for the viewers to engage with the text, as they must actually partake in choosing links to continue the narrative. Their heightened engagement can result in a higher emotional affect towards the characters and an enhanced comprehension of the plot. If these two results do occur, then the hypertext would prove to be a significant resource for Poe’s narrative. Additionally, as narrators, the Gold-Bug team was able to illuminate the themes of insanity or the supernatural.
An additional benefit of the hypertext is reader control. Although the text did not provide the user with various options due to lack of time within the quarter, if it had, the user could control which path they wanted to search based on personal preferences. Because hypertextual environments give the reader control over paths of learning, various interpretations could be created through the hypertext – again, another possibility not feasible from the original text. In Hypertext: Hypertext: An Introduction and Survey, Conklin claims that “Reader control allows the learner to make choices in navigating and manipulating the content on sites. As well, hypertext allows for a non-linear movement within a document with the option of quickly returning to the point of origin (Conklin, 1987).
In conjunction with a readers control and their choice of paths through the text, the option of random movement within the text presents an additional advantage. Since hypertexts permit movement in a text that is non-linear, bits and pieces of the story appear in various sequences, rendering a different understanding of the text from the original. When creating the project, the Gold-Bug team decided to create a text that was ordered chronologically (although the original text is not). While the team felt that this would offer a way for an audience to understand the text – perhaps a younger audience – the option of reorganizing the text provides new possibilities. Conklin also states that “Hypertext allows for a non-linear movement within a document with the option of quickly returning to where learners started” (Conklin). The ability to return to the point of origin and navigate the text in a different ways also allows the reader to see the various effects of a non-linear text.
Had the group had enough time to fully realize the project, presenting the actual story of the Gold-Bug (in terms of when events occur in the text) could have been possible. Because the group wanted to present a fairly easy text for readers to understand, the team recreated a text that was ordered based on chronological events. However, if more time had been permitted, a hypertext with choices could have been created.
Moreover, a hypertext allows for critical thinking. As stated previously, hypertexts permit readers to read information in multiple sequences, and thereby, understanding and analyzing information from multiple perspectives. If information Information gathered from different sources engages users in critical thinking as they make choices, discover, and problem solve their own route through the topic being studied.
Limitations
Although the Gold-Bug Team created a solid prototype for future hypertexts, the team did encounter several limitations. The first setback was how to create a point of view without losing any of the three characters’ voices (Legrand, Jupiter, or the narrator in Poe’s story, whose name is never revealed to the audience). The team aimed to make a new narrator that would incorporate the previous three characters, while simultaneously assisting the player in navigating the text.
One problem that could be encountered when reading the text is reader disorientation. Although the final product that the team created did not present the reader with multiple links or paths of navigation, if there were, the possibility of reader disorientation presents itself. If the Gold-Bug team were to have created various ways of navigation through the text, the team would have had to make careful decisions in the creation and wording of each page of text. Because each page reveals pieces of information from the original story, the user reads each bit to piece together a comprehensive understanding of the whole. While the hypertext would hold their attention through a non-sequential version of The Gold-Bug, it would have been essential for the team to critically look at each of the pages to ensure clarity. More specifically, had the various path hypertext been created, the choices for each would have had to been clearly mapped out so that the reader would not face this possible disorientation. If the team were not acute to the potential disorientations, then readers could have found it particularly difficult to stay on track.
Another basic problem with hypertexts is the difference from reading from the screen versus reading a book. As stated previously, the possibility of a non-linear text remains present, and thus, the team would have had to think of very clear and concise structures for readers to navigate. Moreover, the basic function of making choices as a reader instead of having information presented in a certain manner or traditional linear sequence forces the reader to be more acute in discernment. Not only does the interactivity alter the action of reading, but the requirement of the reader to have heightened perceptions and sensitivity to the text. Abbott states that, "the unique departure of hypertext and other kinds of experimental fiction has turned on the way it undermines narrative linearity, where linearity has meant following in a line from earlier events to later ones" (Abbott, 29).
One particularly essential aspect that I believe was lost when recreating the text is the richness that Poe produced. When piecing the work together, the team encountered the dilemma of simply creating a text that did not lose substance from the original. Poe fashioned his short stories in such a way that he became infamous for creating Gothic, dark, eerie moods with the use of suspense and particularly descriptive writing. While the team made the story, we realized that the text could not be as long as the original; this was due to the fact that reading from a screen and book render two completely opposite expectations – when users read from a screen they expect shorter text, more images, and understanding the point quickly. The average 21st century reader had to be taken into account, and the Gold-Bug team ultimately cut much of the text out. While the story got to the point more quickly, much of the description had to be removed. Because of this, I believe that the new text diminishes the original mastery of language. It simply does not compare to the artistic ability of Poe.
So, if it is the case that textual richness is lost, what is a possible solution? Although the project’s visuals and interactivity shed new light to the story, I still believe that it would be important for students to read the original text. As stated previously, because the team recreated and reorganized the text, based on our personal choice, certain aspects of the text were lost. Not only are elements such as the order of events within the text altered, but also the reader cannot fully realize the richness of the original text. Poe had intended for the story to reveal elements or clues at specific points in time, and our recreation of the text ultimately eliminates and obliterates the readers’ suspense. Abbott states that “Broad generalizations have been made about the radical departure inherent in electronic narrative, but it is important to bear in mind that far and away the majority of electronic narratives are transcriptions or imitations of hard copy” (Abbott 29). If it is the case that the majority of hypertexts today merely imitate or reproduce the original, then it would be essential for the discriminatory literary persona of academia utilize the hypertext as a tool, rather than the sole interpretation of a work.
Overall, the hypertext offers new possibilities for previously written texts. While some setbacks, such as reader disorientation and the loss of textual richness, exist in digital media, several factors enhance the reading and understanding of the text. Yet, the basic transition from a text to a hypertext fundamentally alters the text, as readers see visual imagery, read various points of view, and can interact with the text in new and innovative ways. Moreover, had the Gold-Bug team had more time to create a non-linear text, additional possibilities could have opened up in the examination of the random sequencing of text. Ultimately, the project enabled a new and different understanding of the story, and invites users to visualize the text, navigate through a digital medium, and realize novel ways to understand contemporary hypertexts.
Works Cited
Abbott, H. Porter, The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative (Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 1-35
Conklin J. (1987). Hypertext: An Introduction and Survey. IEEE Computer 2(9), 17-41. Retrieved June 11, 2007, <http://www.ics.uci.edu/~andre/informatics223s2007/conklin.pdf>
