While learning about hypertexts in our English 230 class we had read a hypertext called Patchwork girl written by Shelley Jackson. A hypertext is a “text composed of blocks or words linked electronically by multiple paths, chains, or trails in an open-ended, perpetually unfinished textuality described by the terms link, node, network, web and path.” All of these “unfinished textuality are described in patchwork girl, it is seen when you press on a link and it brings you to a new page or when you click on the images as well. A hypertext allows the reader to explore different pages at different times, so each person is able to have their own experience with Patchwork girl and may not even visit areas in the hypertext as a whole, because each person experience is different. 
In this story Shelley Jackson is portrayed as a character named Mary Shelley, and she is the women who “patches” Patchwork girl together. She takes many bones and pieces of people’s bones and sews them onto Patchwork girl and makes her human, once she received all her pieces, and then she would become whole. Mary was the creator of Patchwork girl and was a mother figure to her as well, no matter where Patchwork girl went, she still somehow tried to find a way to connect to Mary and ask her for her advice. Patchwork is overall about her going off and trying to find out her own identity and trying to hide behind her past without telling people about it. You can see in the picture above that was where Patchwork girl got some of her bones. And these pictures are all around in the Journal category in Patchwork girl.
picture of the story
picture of the journal icon in the five categories
When you start patchwork girl you will see a naked women, and then once you click on her, a new screen will pop up with the title, “Patchwork Girl or a Modern Monster”, which is shown in the very beginning of this blog, underneath the title you will then see five different categories titled, as shown below, “a Graveyard”, “a Journal”, “a Quilt,” “a Story”, and “& broken accents.” Each of these categories is going to show you the story inside the lives of Patchwork girl and this hypertext two of which are shown above. When you click on each of these categories and read what they are about you will then be able to understand that each of these categories are “patched together” to form the hypertext that you are reading and I think that is the theme throughout this whole hypertext, everything is pieced together in this hypertext. For example, “the skeleton of Patchwork girl is the base that supports the whole “body” of the hypertext, ad while it may look differently on the outside, inside they are very similar.”
Each of these categories plays a significant role in learning about Patchwork girl and understanding how the hypertext is “patched” together. The graveyard category is about the putting together of Patchwork girl, there you will be able to meet some of the people who’s parts are a part of her and learn about their lives and what had happened to them. You also learn what parts were used to create her and you are able to put them together. In this section you are going to read, “If you want to see the whole, you will have to piece me together yourself,” and that is exactly what you are doing throughout this whole hypertext up to the end. You are learning what body parts were used and how exactly she was put together and you then learn how she feels about her body. For example, when reading this hypertext I learned where her arms and legs came from and then later on in the hypertext she was losing a foot and had to sew herself back together, and later she kept losing body parts and had to keep putting herself back together. And that is the whole, without reading all of the passages I would not have been able to learn what exactly had happened to her when she was learning “who she was”. And I believe that is what she meant when she said, “you will have to piece me together yourself,” which is shown above in the picture, because as the reader, we are doing a lot of work with what exactly is happening and if we do not get to a part then we probably did not end up putting that piece together and then we are not learning more about her. As the reader we have a choice in what links to press and where the story is going to go and that is where we are going to piece Patchwork girl together.
In the other categories is where you really learn about her, in the journal, broken accents, a quilt and a story are mostly similar, in the journal you see Mary Shelley’s reaction to Patchwork Girl as well as learn about the interaction with each other. There you learn about their intimacy that they shared in laying in the bed together and when Mary did not judge the monster of her scares, which are two images shown above. In the story though is where you learn about her adventures to America with Chancy and what happens when she is there as well as the steps that she took to disguise herself, to hide to scars of her past. When Patchwork girl was on the boat to America she had to conform to the “women ways” and was not able to run around as much but instead she had to be on her best behavior. She had women objects in her purse such as a: hanky, but once she had gotten to death valley she decided that she did not want to conform and that she was going to go her own way and become her own person. In those categories is where you will learn this as well are where you will learn a lot about Patchwork girl and the struggles that she has when her body slowly falls apart and when she has to sew herself together. When this happens she tries any way that she could to get in contact with Mary but nothing seemed to work. When you read the rest of the categories you learn a lot about her as a whole and how and what is happening to her through her journey and the actions that she has taken to hide her scars as well as finding out her own identity. All of these characters show us, the reader how this hypertext is “patched together” and in order to know and understand everything, you have to really read and understand what is going on, because each piece makes this hypertext complete.
While reading another hypertext, My body-a Wunderkammer I saw a lot of similarities, the obvious one is that they are written by the same author, Shelley Jackson. And while reading it the lexia’s are similar because in order to get to the next lexia you had to click a body part. And that is the same with Patchwork girl, because in order to understand what she was going through you had to click a body part to explain what was going to happen next. Also they each had a sense of “not belonging”, in patchwork girl she did not want to be in her body because of the scars and because she did not like the past, being put together with other peoples parts, but with my body she did not belong because of the way she looked like as well, she had large muscles and was tall for her age in her adolescent years, so she was made fun of and that is what Patchwork girl was scared about, she did not want to be made fun of or looked down upon so she had disguised herself. But in my body, she had conformed to the natural women, her mother told her to shave her armpits, so she did, and her friends told her to shave her toes, so she did that too. She just wanted to feel like she belonged so she listened to everyone even if she didn’t want to do those things. Patchwork girl dressed like the modern women and carried the womanly items as well. They each behaved calmly even though they just wanted to run out and be themselves. But they could not do what they wanted because they were trying to create an identity and they thought that identity would have to conform to the rest of the world’s image. Each of these similarities shows a lot with the way hypertexts work, they each have a problem and overtime they are trying to fix it, the main similarity is that when you click on a body part it has a different story to tell, whether it is about you or someone else, each of it is very important.
With Patchwork girl, she just wanted to find out who she was until she started falling apart and then she realized that she already knew who she was. I believe that Patchwork girl was an amazing hypertext, I learned a lot about it and understood exactly where she was coming from. I loved all of the themes and the way that she had portrayed everything together I thought that it was very useful and effective. I believe that if you have not purchased Patchwork girl yet, then you should because it is an amazing experience with hypertext and it taught me a lot about it and in the picture above shows all of the history that I went through with this hypertext.
Sources used:
http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/jackson__my_body_a_wunderkammer.html
http://www.atlantisjournal.org/ARCHIVE/28.1/2006Sanchez-PalenciaCarazo_AlmagroJimenez.pdf
I also used class notes and discussions and a quote Parker said while we were in a group.
