Self Reflection

Originally my plan for this final project was to combine my last three essays into one cohesive paper that analyzed technology and its influence on legitimate literature.  I was going to focus on Storyland and then compare it to Frankenstein and Pinocchio to show that Storyland was not legitimate literature, while Frankenstein and Pinocchio were. After trying to compile all my thoughts into a six page paper, I quickly realized that writing such a paper would be extremely difficult and confusing. After talking about and rethinking my paper, I shifted my focus from Storyland  to Frankenstein. My new plan for the paper was to primarily focus on Frankenstein as a legitimate form of literature and then support that argument by comparing it to the film Pinocchio, which is an effective remediation of Frankenstein and a legitimate form of literature, and also compare it to Storyland, which is not a legitimate form of literature. This focus worked better for my paper because my first two papers were Frankenstein comparisons and my last paper was analyzing Storyland, so I had a lot of material to work with. Also, by comparing Pinocchio and Storyland to Frankenstein, I had an effective counterargument with Storyland and support for my argument with Pinocchio.

I found this paper very interesting because the topic differed greatly from any previous papers that I have written. Most of the papers that I had written before were research papers with a definite argument that you had to make. With this project, I felt like I had more leeway to write about whatever I wanted within obvious limitations. Although this paper required some research, it more involved pulling all that we had read and learned from the semester into one paper. While I do not mind a research paper, this paper was refreshing in a way because it was different and we really had a lot of freedom in deciding what we wanted to write about.

With this freedom, however, came difficulty. For me, it is easier and clearer if I am given a specific prompt and told exactly what is required. With this paper, and our previous papers, I had to really think about and focus on what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. I had a hard time deciding on what I wanted to argue and once I finally decided, I did not know how to approach the paper. I was not sure how to organize my thoughts effectively.  I ended up writing out outlines, producing three drafts with different approaches, and talking to my professor to help organize my thoughts and determine what I really wanted to focus on. I usually do not put so much planning into a paper, but outlining and talking my ideas out really helped me to get on track.

My final paper ended up being a combination of essentially all four of my previous papers, but mainly the last three. My first paper focused on reflection and my definition of writing. The idea of reflection continued in this paper when I analyzed my own definition of literature and how I thought modern technology might be affecting literature. My second paper focused on close reading and drew parallels between Frankenstein and Genesis, a text that Shelley referred to in her novel. My third paper also focused on Frankenstein and drawing parallels with the film Pinocchio and my fourth paper focused on Storyland and questioned the legitimacy of it as a piece of literature. These last three papers provided the evidence for my argument that Pinocchio was a legitimate remediation of Frankenstein, while Storyland was not.

Throughout this semester, I really worked on organizing my essays and making my arguments more effective. I learned how to successfully use counterargument to enhance my argument and elaborate and frame my quotes. I also learned that writing does not always have to sound distant and formal. With the right syntax and diction, you can make your writing more readable by making it more conversational while still maintaining a formal structure. I think that I have really strengthened my writing though the Washington College GRW and English 101 classes, but writing can never be perfected. It is a constant process. I am still working on slowing down my writing and developing my ideas more. I am also working on strengthening my thesis and always drawing connections from my paper back to my thesis.

Revised Project:Technology’s Hideous Progeny

Mary Shelley famously referred to her book Frankenstein, as well as the monster she created, as her “hideous progeny” (25). The reference continues. Technology has replaced the author’s role in creating literature and has taken over; altering the way society approaches and reads literature creating its own hideous and illegitimate progeny. As our society experiences technological advances, we increasingly focus on the easy and efficient and we throw away our past and permanent ways of life. We are consumed by the internet and the electronic world, and consequently have forgotten about books and literature that you can actually touch and hold. Literature is defined as the body of writing, the profession of a writer, writing with universal and permanent interest. To me, literature is all of the above; it is something you can delve into and learn from, something you can experience. Frankenstein is a legitimate form of literature and it is based on such ideals that I consider the Disney film Pinocchio an effective remediation of Shelley’s tale and not the hypertext Storyland. Storyland and electronic writings like it are just additional distractions to our increasingly shallow society and do not live up to the depth that Shelley achieved.  It is not my intention to oppose all technology, on the contrary technology, when used appropriately, can produce a legitimate and worthy product, as we see in Pinocchio and Frankenstein.

In Frankenstein, Shelley gives depth to her tale by creating connections between her characters as well as connections between herself and the story. By creating such connections, the story becomes more complex and engages the reader. Shelley maintains authorship of her tale and gives her tale a sense of intention and effort. This mentality transcends to her characters: Victor Frankenstein and the creature. We also see this sense of authorship, intention, and connection in the 1940 Disney film Pinocchio, in the film itself as well as in the characters. The film director and editor maintain a sense of individual authorship and chose to portray the characters in a specific way. Looking at the characters, we see Geppetto putting a lot of effort and care into the creation of Pinocchio, forming a close character bond. We do not, however, see such effort and connection in the hypertext Storyland. Rather, Storyland is primarily fragmented, with no authorship and therefore no connections among the characters and the author.

            When I first came across Storyland, the word “story” immediately caught my eye and I thought I finally found a real piece of literature, something comparable to Frankenstein─ a successful combination of technology and literature. I was wrong. I was immediately met with circus music and the flashing letters that make up “Storyland” and I could no longer take this site seriously. Storyland is a program that randomly creates disconnected stories according to a computer formula. The formula determines what sentence to add onto the growing story until it reaches ten sentences. Storyland, according to Katherine Hayles ─author of Writing Machines─, is “a new breed of second-generation electronic literature…experimenting with ways to incorporate narratives with sounds, motion, animation, and other software functionalities” (27). When the story ends, you can hit a button to start the process over again. This new breed of electronic literature has become so focused on the sounds and animation that people have lost sight of literature’s power to speak alone, without all the high technology accessories. Shelley’s character Victor Frankenstein focuses, too, on sounds motion, and animation, but instead of using those aspects to cover up and mask the story, Shelley uses them to create the monster, which enhances and develops her story.

 Literature is engaging because of the imaginative world that you can create from reading it, not the superficial sounds and flashes that distract from the actual story. In other words, the stories may be arbitrarily composed, but they still lack the free and creative quality that Hayles glorifies when she promotes “the free form of play” (16). Storyland is a confined and limited program that can only proceed forward, which is ironic because as a hypertext it should link nonlinearly to other texts. We, however, do see this nonlinear linking in Shelley’s Frankenstein when she referred to other texts, such as “Genesis”, “Paradise Lost”, and “Mutability.” Shelley uses the “Genesis” reference, for example, to further her idea of creation of a “hideous progeny” and consequences of such a creation. Adam parallels Frankenstein’s monster and upon this discovery, the monster directly compares himself to Adam considering the fact that “I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence” (Shelley 116).  Shelley incorporates “Paradise Lost” when she hints at the corruption of society and fall of man and she includes “Mutability” to further her argument about the change of man in both their actions and thoughts. These complex parallels give her story depth and perspective and a broader audience spectrum. Storyland may be randomly produced, which would seemingly make it interesting and surprising, but it is not playful in the way that a novel, such as Frankenstein, could be.

Novels are more creative and playful because they have an author ─ a person who knows how to appeal to other people. In Storyland, the author is not involved in the final product; rather the confined and limited computer is generating the disconnected story. There is no author giving thought and effort to producing literature. In Frankenstein, we see Shelley’s ownership and pride in her “progeny,” yet in Storyland we experience no strong connection between the author and the story and therefore no connection between the story and the reader. Without an author, the writing loses definition and according to Sven Birkerts, author of The Gutenberg Elegies, “the idea of individual authorship” (159) is being lost more and more in the electronic and hypertext format. Loss of definition of an individual is a key concern of Birkerts. He writes that “the decline of the prestige of authorship…has much to do with the climate of our current intellectual culture” (158-159). Birkerts argues that we, as writers and as people, are losing our individuality and soul when we give up our past ways for new technology.

To a certain extent, Birkerts argument makes sense. When looking at Storyland, it is obvious that we have lost individual connections that are so important in writing. In juxtaposition, however, look at the film Pinocchio. Pinocchio, the character specifically, was created by Geppetto, and therefore because he was artificially created, it involved technology. Technology was not Pinocchio’s downfall; rather his creation strengthened the bond between him and his creator, Geppetto. Still looking at Pinocchio but this time as film media, there is the idea that the director and editor are creating the film, which is directing the viewer. So even in the most modern form of technology, the creator and product relationship still works and plays a significant role in the final product.

Individual authorship also plays an extremely significant role in Frankenstein. Shelley develops a very intimate relationship with her novel calling it her “progeny,” just as Frankenstein develops a strong relationship with his creature. Shelley wants her novel to “bid forth and prosper” and she even said “I have an affection for it, for it was the offspring of happy days” (25). Both Shelley and Frankenstein put a lot of effort ─ choosing each “feature as beautiful” ( 60)─and intention into their projects and consequently created very complex products. Compare this to Storyland, a hypertext without an author, without any intention, without any human effort to create a deep and complex story.

I also define stories with the idea of permanence. The stories created are not permanent; as soon as the button for a new story is chosen, the story disappears and a new one is made. The same story is never repeated. While some may think of this unpredictability and mutability as a good thing, Birkerts emphasizes that permanence is an issue with technology because “words which appear and disappear…have a different status and affect us differently from words held immobile on the accessible space of a page” (154). Words written in Frankenstein will remain there whether you open or close the book and images in Pinocchio will stay there whether you rewind or fast forward. Phrases written by Shelley are infamous and live on, as do the stories of “Genesis” and “Paradise Lost”. It is very improbable, however, that a phrase or story produced in Storyland will live on and become a legend. Words that are permanent on a printed page have a sense of resonance and history to it because you know that an author carefully selected a word for that reason. Words that appear and disappear in an electronic program, such as Storyland, are fleeting and not as meaningful.

Consequently, there is no depth to the stories. The reader cannot truly delve into them and experience them in a meaningful way. As I have argued, you should be able to truly experience literature. You should be able to sit down for a couple hours and enter a whole new world where you can learn something new or just let your imagination run wild.  In Frankenstein, the reader is submerged into Frankenstein’s and the creature’s world. Because the reader is so immersed in the characters’ life, the reader develops emotional connections and sympathy for the creature. In Storyland, the character relationships are not developed and there is no plot or climax to the story, so how are you supposed to get deeply involved in the story? The typical Storyland introductory sentence starts with a random character doing a random action. For example, when I opened Storyland, the first sentence to come up was, “Before things were written, a paranoid schizophrenic pretended to be free. The schizophrenic persevered.” The schizophrenic is given no introduction, previous history, or defined relationship to the orphan, the fatherly uncle, and the fortune teller who are later briefly introduced. Because these characters are not properly introduced, the reader does not form as intimate a relationship with the characters or the story, as they would with a more detailed novel. In Frankenstein, the reader develops an intimate relationship with the creature, just as Shelley does, because the reader essentially grows up with the creature. You are there before, during, and after the creature’s life and you are able to delve into the creature’s thoughts.

Similarly, in Pinocchio, the viewer follows Pinocchio from his creation to his becoming a real boy. The reader sees Geppetto’s fatherly love for Pinocchio and we see the social obstacles that Pinocchio must overcome. The film, as does Frankenstein, utilizes pathos the appeal to the audience and to help draw a connection between the story and the viewers. Pinocchio mirrors Frankenstein in that the main characters must confront societal corruption and manipulation in order to prove themselves to society and to develop as characters.

I might disagree with Birkerts in that he considers all technology to be the devil, but I think we do need to slow down from focusing on the future and look at what we are leaving behind. As Birkerts said, in order to embrace technology, we have to give up a “certain way of looking at the world… with a set of assumptions about history and distance, and difficulty and solitude and the slow work of self-making – all of which go against the premises of instantaneousness, interactivity, sensory stimulation and ease that make the world of Wired attractive to so many” (213). These technological advancements are severely altering the “modification of the relation between the writer and the language” (Birkerts 157). In other words, no more are the days where a person sits down with a pen and paper to write a story, like Mary Shelley did. We have forgotten that writing is a form of technology too. We are losing that personal connection between the author and the story and we are therefore losing the personal connection forged between the story and the reader. Not all technology is bad, but when looking at Storyland specifically you see what technology has become ─ a distraction in an increasingly shallow and fragmented society. Mary Shelley saw her book as a hideous progeny, something she was proud to send out into the world and call literature. Disney saw their film as an accomplishment, a children’s movie about morals and society. The hypertext Storyland has made a similar attempt at achieving such a masterpiece and has fallen short.

Original Fourth Writing Project: Technology’s Illegitimate Progeny

Mary Shelley famously referred to her book Frankenstein, as well as the monster she created, as her “hideous progeny” (25). The reference continues. Technology has replaced the author’s role in creating literature and has taken over; altering the way society approaches and reads literature creating its own hideous and illegitimate progeny. As our society experiences technological advances, we increasingly focus on the easy and efficient and we throw away our past and permanent ways of life. We are consumed by the internet and the electronic world, and consequently have forgotten about books and literature that you can actually touch and hold. Literature is defined as the body of writing, the profession of a writer, writing with universal and permanent interest. To me, literature is all of the above; it is something you can delve into and learn from, something you can experience. It is based on such ideals that I consider the hypertext Storyland to be an illegitimate and ineffective form of writing. Storyland and electronic writings like it are just additional distractions to our increasingly shallow society.

When I first came across Storyland, the word “story” immediately caught my eye and I thought I finally found a real piece of literature. I was wrong. I was immediately met with circus music and the flashing letters that make up “Storyland” and I could no longer take this site seriously. I recognize that literature can be a fun hobby, but this was ridiculous. It was a game, not a story that I could delve into.

Storyland is a program that randomly creates disconnected stories according to a computer formula. The formula determines what sentence to add onto the growing story until it reaches ten sentences. Storyland, according to Katherine Hayles ─author of Writing Machines─, is “a new breed of second-generation electronic literature…experimenting with ways to incorporate narratives with sounds, motion, animation, and other software functionalities” (27). When the story ends, you can hit a button to start the process over again. This new breed of electronic literature has become so focused on the sounds and animation that people have lost sight of literature’s power to speak alone, without all the high technology accessories.

My first grievance against Storyland is that the finished product does not compile into one cohesive piece. It is a disjointed story that consequently does not make sense. In opposition, Hayles would argue that the mutability of it all makes the product entertaining and amusing and promotes “the free form of creative play” (16) and she is not wrong. I, too, think reading should be entertaining, but not in the form of a game. Literature is engaging because of the imaginative world that you can create from reading it, not the superficial sounds and flashes that distract from the actual story. Perhaps the fact that the story does not make sense would better engage the reader, forcing him or her to further think through the stories. I am all for thinking about and trying to further your reading experience, but when the writing is ten sentences long with little variation in sentence structure, it is impossible to develop a meaningful experience from that.  In other words, the stories may be arbitrarily composed, but they still lack the free and creative quality that Hayles glorifies. It may be randomly produced, which would seemingly make it interesting and surprising, but it is not playful in the way that a novel could be.

Novels are more creative and playful because they have an author ─ a person who knows how to appeal to other people. In Storyland, the author is not involved in the final product; rather the confined and limited computer is generating the disconnected story. Granted someone may have originally written or submitted the individual sentences, but when it comes to compiling the sentences into a story, it is all done through a computer formula. There is no author giving thought and effort to producing literature. Without an author, the writing loses definition and according to Sven Birkerts, author of The Gutenberg Elegies, “the idea of individual authorship” (159) is being lost more and more in the electronic and hypertext format. Loss of definition of an individual is a key concern of Birkerts. He writes that “the decline of the prestige of authorship…has much to do with the climate of our current intellectual culture” (158-159). Birkerts argues that we, as writers and as people, are losing our individuality and soul when we give up our past ways for new technology. Hayles used the term “Creole” and defined it as a “language compounded from English and computer code” (50), which essentially describes how Storyland is compiling sentences through formulas. She also talked of “neologisms”, which she described as “coinages made from existing words that express new synthesis” basically meaning that arbitrary sentences are put together to form a story. You could make a technical argument and say that technically stories are being produced regardless of whether it is a person or computer developing them. It all depends on how you define story; if you define story as a group of sentences with characters, then Storyland makes stories. But if you define a story as a short narrative with connected events, developed characters, and a plot, then Storyland would not be producing stories.

I also define stories with the idea of permanence. The stories created are not permanent; as soon as the button for a new story is chosen, the story disappears and a new one is made. The same story is never repeated. Some may think of this unpredictability and mutability as a good thing. Hayles thinks that literature should be fun and entertaining and the random applications to the story would be appealing, but regardless is it literature? Birkerts emphasizes that permanence is an issue with technology because “words which appear and disappear…have a different status and affect us differently from words held immobile on the accessible space of a page” (154). Words that are permanent on a printed page have a sense of resonance and history to it because you know that an author carefully selected a word for that reason. Words that appear and disappear in an electronic program, in general, are fleeting and not as meaningful.

Consequently, there is no depth to the stories. The reader cannot truly delve into them and experience them in a meaningful way. As I have argued, you should be able to truly experience literature. You should be able to sit down for a couple hours and enter a whole new world where you can learn something new or just let your imagination run wild. In Storyland, the character relationships are not developed and there is no plot or climax to the story, so how are you supposed to get deeply involved in the story? The typical Storyland introductory sentence starts with a random character doing a random action. For example, when I opened Storyland, the first sentence to come up was, “Before things were written, a paranoid schizophrenic pretended to be free. The schizophrenic persevered.” The schizophrenic is given no introduction, previous history, or defined relationship to the orphan, the fatherly uncle, and the fortune teller who are later briefly introduced. Because these characters are not properly introduced, the reader does not form as intimate a relationship with the characters or the story, as they would with a more detailed novel. Literature should be a memorable experience and when you are introduced to a very vague and very short story, it would be hard to remember it. One could argue that this form of stories promotes imagination and creativity because it is forcing you to think and figure out the story. A legitimate statement, but given that each story is only ten sentences long, with little variation (yet ironically, randomly produced), it makes the possibility for a deep and meaningful creative experience impossible.

I might disagree with Birkerts in that he considers all technology to be the devil, but I think we do need to slow down from focusing on the future and look at what we are leaving behind. As Birkerts said, in order to embrace technology, we have to give up a “certain way of looking at the world… with a set of assumptions about history and distance, and difficulty and solitude and the slow work of self-making – all of which go against the premises of instantaneousness, interactivity, sensory stimulation and ease that make the world of Wired attractive to so many” (213). These technological advancements are severely altering the “modification of the relation between the writer and the language” (Birkerts 157). In other words, no more are the days where a person sits down with a pen and paper to write a story. We are losing that personal connection between the author and the story and we are therefore losing the personal connection forged between the story and the reader. Technology is not all bad, but when looking at Storyland specifically you see what technology has become ─ a distraction in an increasingly shallow society. Mary Shelley saw her book as a hideous progeny, something she was proud to send out into the world and call literature. The world of technology has made a similar attempt at such a masterpiece and has fallen short.

Technology’s Hideous Progeny

Mary Shelley famously referred to her book Frankenstein, as well as the monster she created, as her “hideous progeny” (25). The reference continues. Technology has replaced the author’s role in creating literature and has taken over; altering the way society approaches and reads literature creating its own hideous and illegitimate progeny. As our society experiences technological advances, we increasingly focus on the easy and efficient and we throw away our past and permanent ways of life. We are consumed by the internet and the electronic world, and consequently have forgotten about books and literature that you can actually touch and hold. Literature is defined as the body of writing, the profession of a writer, writing with universal and permanent interest. To me, literature is all of the above; it is something you can delve into and learn from, something you can experience. It is based on such ideals that I consider the hypertext Storyland to be an illegitimate and ineffective form of writing. Storyland and electronic writings like it are just additional distractions to our increasingly shallow society.

            When I first came across Storyland, the word “story” immediately caught my eye and I thought I finally found a real piece of literature. I was wrong. I was immediately met with circus music and the flashing letters that make up “Storyland” and I could no longer take this site seriously. I recognize that literature can be a fun hobby, but this was ridiculous. It was a game, not a story that I could delve into.

Storyland is a program that randomly creates disconnected stories according to a computer formula. The formula determines what sentence to add onto the growing story until it reaches ten sentences. Storyland, according to Katherine Hayles ─author of Writing Machines─, is “a new breed of second-generation electronic literature…experimenting with ways to incorporate narratives with sounds, motion, animation, and other software functionalities” (27). When the story ends, you can hit a button to start the process over again. This new breed of electronic literature has become so focused on the sounds and animation that people have lost sight of literature’s power to speak alone, without all the high technology accessories.

My first grievance against Storyland is that the finished product does not compile into one cohesive piece. It is a disjointed story that consequently does not make sense. In opposition, Hayles would argue that the mutability of it all makes the product entertaining and amusing and promotes “the free form of creative play” (16) and she is not wrong. I, too, think reading should be entertaining, but not in the form of a game. Literature is engaging because of the imaginative world that you can create from reading it, not the superficial sounds and flashes that distract from the actual story. Perhaps the fact that the story does not make sense would better engage the reader, forcing him or her to further think through the stories. I am all for thinking about and trying to further your reading experience, but when the writing is ten sentences long with little variation in sentence structure, it is impossible to develop a meaningful experience from that.  In other words, the stories may be arbitrarily composed, but they still lack the free and creative quality that Hayles glorifies. It may be randomly produced, which would seemingly make it interesting and surprising, but it is not playful in the way that a novel could be.

Novels are more creative and playful because they have an author ─ a person who knows how to appeal to other people. In Storyland, the author is not involved in the final product; rather the confined and limited computer is generating the disconnected story. Granted someone may have originally written or submitted the individual sentences, but when it comes to compiling the sentences into a story, it is all done through a computer formula. There is no author giving thought and effort to producing literature. Without an author, the writing loses definition and according to Sven Birkerts, author of The Gutenberg Elegies, “the idea of individual authorship” (159) is being lost more and more in the electronic and hypertext format. Loss of definition of an individual is a key concern of Birkerts. He writes that “the decline of the prestige of authorship…has much to do with the climate of our current intellectual culture” (158-159). Birkerts argues that we, as writers and as people, are losing our individuality and soul when we give up our past ways for new technology. Hayles used the term “Creole” and defined it as a “language compounded from English and computer code” (50), which essentially describes how Storyland is compiling sentences through formulas. She also talked of “neologisms”, which she described as “coinages made from existing words that express new synthesis” basically meaning that arbitrary sentences are put together to form a story. You could make a technical argument and say that technically stories are being produced regardless of whether it is a person or computer developing them. It all depends on how you define story; if you define story as a group of sentences with characters, then Storyland makes stories. But if you define a story as a short narrative with connected events, developed characters, and a plot, then Storyland would not be producing stories.

I also define stories with the idea of permanence. The stories created are not permanent; as soon as the button for a new story is chosen, the story disappears and a new one is made. The same story is never repeated. Some may think of this unpredictability and mutability as a good thing. Hayles thinks that literature should be fun and entertaining and the random applications to the story would be appealing, but regardless is it literature? Birkerts emphasizes that permanence is an issue with technology because “words which appear and disappear…have a different status and affect us differently from words held immobile on the accessible space of a page” (154). Words that are permanent on a printed page have a sense of resonance and history to it because you know that an author carefully selected a word for that reason. Words that appear and disappear in an electronic program, in general, are fleeting and not as meaningful.

Consequently, there is no depth to the stories. The reader cannot truly delve into them and experience them in a meaningful way. As I have argued, you should be able to truly experience literature. You should be able to sit down for a couple hours and enter a whole new world where you can learn something new or just let your imagination run wild. In Storyland, the character relationships are not developed and there is no plot or climax to the story, so how are you supposed to get deeply involved in the story? The typical Storyland introductory sentence starts with a random character doing a random action. For example, when I opened Storyland, the first sentence to come up was, “Before things were written, a paranoid schizophrenic pretended to be free. The schizophrenic persevered.” The schizophrenic is given no introduction, previous history, or defined relationship to the orphan, the fatherly uncle, and the fortune teller who are later briefly introduced. Because these characters are not properly introduced, the reader does not form as intimate a relationship with the characters or the story, as they would with a more detailed novel. Literature should be a memorable experience and when you are introduced to a very vague and very short story, it would be hard to remember it. One could argue that this form of stories promotes imagination and creativity because it is forcing you to think and figure out the story. A legitimate statement, but given that each story is only ten sentences long, with little variation (yet ironically, randomly produced), it makes the possibility for a deep and meaningful creative experience impossible.

I might disagree with Birkerts in that he considers all technology to be the devil, but I think we do need to slow down from focusing on the future and look at what we are leaving behind. As Birkerts said, in order to embrace technology, we have to give up a “certain way of looking at the world… with a set of assumptions about history and distance, and difficulty and solitude and the slow work of self-making – all of which go against the premises of instantaneousness, interactivity, sensory stimulation and ease that make the world of Wired attractive to so many” (213). These technological advancements are severely altering the “modification of the relation between the writer and the language” (157). In other words, no more are the days where a person sits down with a pen and paper to write a story. We are losing that personal connection between the author and the story and we are therefore losing the personal connection forged between the story and the reader. Technology is not all bad, but when looking at Storyland specifically you see what technology has become ─ a distraction in an increasingly shallow society. Mary Shelley saw her book as a hideous progeny, something she was proud to send out into the world and call literature. The world of technology has made a similar attempt at such a masterpiece and has fallen short.

Storyland: A land where there are no stories

For our fourth writing project, I decided to analyze Storyland, a supposed piece of electronic literature, from the electronic archives. Storyland is a program with a collection of sentences, which through a computer formula, are randomly compiled into short stories. When you first approach the page, you are greeted with circus music and flashing and colorful letters that spell out Storyland.

I do not think that Storyland can be considered a legitimate piece of literature. It is not effective. When you read the “stories” they are disjointed and the sentences do not compile into a cohesive piece of literature.  Also, the author is not involved in making the final product. These stories are completely computer produced. I believe that literature is the work of an author, a person, who wants to tell a story. Sure, you could argue that Storyland produces story, but think again, shouldn’t stories make sense? They are not stories if there is no plot, no climax, and no end. In addition, the stories that Storyland produces are fleeting; once the page is refreshed, the story is lost and the chances of it being reproduced are slim.

For every argument there is opposition. You may be thinking that the randomness of it all seems more entertaining and engaging than a normal book. Well Hayles, author of Writing Machines,  would agree with you; she believes literature should be entertaining and fun. You are not wrong, I, too, think reading should be entertaining, but not in the form of a game. Literature is engaging because of the imaginative world that you can create from reading it, not the superficial sounds and flashes that cover up the actual story. You could also take a more technical argument and say that technically the program is producing stories, short narratives, whether they make sense or not. But exactly how effective are these confusing and disjointed stories? In my mind, not very. There is no point reading a story that does not and will not make sense.  Lastly, you could argue that this form of stories promotes imagination and creativity because it is forcing you to think and figure out the story. A legitimate statement, but given that each story is only seven sentences long, it makes the possibility for a deep and meaningful creative experience impossible.

I agree with Birkerts when he argues that technology is moving too fast and that society has become obsessed with technological advancements and forgetting about the treasures of the past. In the Gutenberg Elegies, Birkerts argued that technology has “a modification of the relation between the writer and the language” (157). Such an increase in technology has completely removed the author from the literature. All the language now is abbreviated and in code to cater to the computer.

One passage that I really thought epitomized my argument was from Birkert’s conclusion:

“The disinclination I feel about the digital future is stronger, more certain, but the fear grows from the same root. I see the situation in Faustian terms, as an either/or. To embrace the microchip and all its magic would be to close myself off from a great many habits and attitudes, ones that define me to myself; I would have to reposition myself on the space-time axis. I would have to say good-bye to a certain way of looking at the world because that way is bound up with a set of assumptions about history and distance, and difficulty and solitude and the slow work of self-making – all of which go against the premises of instantaneousness, interactivity, sensory stimulation and ease that make the world of Wired attractive to so many” (213).

So why does this matter? We are losing our sense of literature and learning. We have become so engrossed in computers and electronics that we have lost the ability to read and research in a book. We are asked to go to the library for a book and we see it as such an inconvenience, not just because we actually have to get off the couch and drive there, but because it is such a hassle to go find a book on a shelf.

Storyland: A Place Where the Author is No More

We were told to pick an electronic text and analyze it from the view of either Hayles or Birkerts, a seemingly simple task. I started this process by looking through some electronic texts and I found that for about 99% of the texts that I looked at, I did not understand them. These texts confused me because they did not seem like actual language; what they were saying did not make sense. After looking at several texts, I chose Storyland, a rather animated text that selects random sentences according to a computer formula, and compiles them into a unique story, one that changes everytime.

Initially I thought of Storyland through Hayles’ point of view. In Writing Machines, she used the word “Creole,” which she defines as a “language compounded from English and computer code” (50); a language in which sentences are put together through formulas. She also mentioned “Neologisms,” in which random sentences are put together to form a story. Both of these concepts fit with Storyland and how the actual story is compiled. Hayles also believed that literature should be amusing and entertaining, and she most likely would embrace Storyland because of its creativity, color, and Disney-like character. The Storyland program opens by playing circus music and the letters of Storyland blinking with different colors. While Hayles would support Storyland, Birkerts would easily provide the opposing argument.

Birkerts would absolutely despise the Storyland program. Birkerts would consider Storyland to be more playing than reading and he would not consider it legitimate literature because of the probability of chance and the constantly changing story. The idea that the computer and a formula determines what sentences make up what story mirrors Birkerts’ arguement that “Hypertext gives the screen, modem, software a significant role in the writing process” (160). The computer is taking over the author’s role and therefore modifing the relation between the writer and the language.

Books and stories should be the author’s product but in Storyland, its the computer’s product. Storyland should not be considered real literature because it has no real end. There are infinite possibilities of stories, and the only reader interaction involved is starting the story program over again. Perhaps one of the main reasons, Storyland should not be considered legitimate literature is because the stories do not make sense. The sentences are randomly combined, creating a very disjointed story. Because these stories do not make sense, Storyland lacks the entertainment factor that most books would possess.

After analyzing Storyland through both authors’ perspectives, I would have to agree with Birkerts. Sure the animation of the electronic text is creative and eye-catching, but it is not literature. The stories that Storyland create are ephemeral. Once you refresh or leave the page, the story is gone and because of the random compilation, the same stoyr will never be recreated. Books are permanent and their stories live on. After you close a book, the story and the text inside still remains and to me, that is real literature.

Editing is a constant process

Yesterday, I went to a writing workshop, sponsored by the Washington College writing center, about sentence structure and editing and improving your syntax.

They handed out a packet with writing rules and tips and on the front was a picture of a speech covered in editing marks. It was not until we got into discussion about editing and syntax that we learned the picture was of President Obama’s speech for the Healthcare program. This should not have taken me by surprise because obviously the President did not just come up with his speech out of the blue, but the fact that he, too, had to go through the same editing and writing process that we did put the process in perspective.

I always assumed that after college, I would be done with the essays and editing. Sure, pursuing a career in environmental science may require less writing than a business profession, but I realized that no matter where I go or what I do, writing and editing will be beneficial skills in any career.

We learned about complete sentences and sentence fragments and ways you can check your writing. We also focused on sentence conjuctions, ways to make your writing more rhythmic, and nomalizations. Most of these topics seemed like review for me, but when we talked about nomalizations, I think I really learned something.

Nomalizations occur when you make one part of speech into a noun. I did not realize that too many nomalizations in a sentence can make the sentence choppy and confusing. How you ever read a sentence and then had to read it again and again before you understand what it is saying? Yah, I would always come across these sentences when editing my paper and I could not understand why the sentences were not making sense when they technically said what I wanted to say. Well, I found my answer and now when I come across those sentences in my next paper, I know to rearrange the words to make the sentence less complicated.

At the beginning of the workshop, we were told that editing was an ongoing process and I remember wondering how we would ever perfect our writing if there is always going to be something wrong with it. I think I realize now that even though we may not be able to perfect our writing, editing our papers helps us to refine what we want to say and perfect our arguement. So I may never be able to write the perfect paper because everyone has a different style, but I can certainly perfect my arguement through my writing.

Lemony Snicket: Behind the Series of Unfortunate Events

We were lucky enough to have Daniel Handler aka Lemony Snicket come to Washington College and talk to us. Let me start by saying he was nothing like I expected him to be. He was extremely funny, and welcoming and he even researched the latest Kent County news so that he knew what was going on in the little town of Chestertown.  I did not think it was possible for anyone to connect recent Kent County events to Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events, but I was wrong and if anyone could do it, Daniel Handler would be the one. His humor and comedy transcended from his entire talk and he was extremely open to questions from the audience.

I expected him to talk about his books and the process of writing his books. But yet again I was mistaken. Sure, he talked about his books, but he also taked about his life and why and how he came up with such ideas. He explained how Lemony Snicket came to be and why he created and wrote about possibily the most unfortunate and unlucky children known to mankind.

Going into this talk, I had never read any of his books and I had seen the movie only once. I gained so much respect for Mr. Handler through that talk and I definitely want to read his books, even if they are written for much younger children. I think we all have something to learn from chilldren’s books, even if they are indeed written for children.

I think that Handler’s work appeals to us so much because we can all find ourselves in at least one of his characters, if not more than one. Me, for example, I see parts of  myself in each of the orphans. I am glad to say that I am not as unfortunate as them, but I connect with their personalities and their morals. The orphans go through hard times and so do children in real life and we can all draw strength from the orphans. If they can get through the Series of Unfortunate Events, then we can get through any obstacles, trivial or not, that come in our paths.

Looking Deeper into the Darker Elements

           Late one night, an ambitious man sits in his workshop, toiling with his work, piecing together a masterpiece. Choosing each “feature as beautiful” (Shelley 60), he dreams of the possibilities and the success of his creation. He eventually puts the finishing touches on his work and admires his achievement, not knowing the ramifications of his handiwork and what was to come.

           The stories of Frankenstein and Pinocchio are rarely juxtaposed, let alone mentioned in the same context. When looking deeper into the darker elements, however, Pinocchio is a mirror of the Frankenstein story. They do not necessarily share the murderous and horrific story, but they do share the elements of creation, discovery, and flaws and how an emphasis of those elements exacerbates the characters’ alienation from society. Pinocchio and the creature were both unnaturally created and flawed and consequently seen as social “monsters.”

            Inadvertently or not, Walt Disney’s interpretation of the 1883 fairy tale Pinocchio parallels many key points, such as creation and discovery, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In the creation scene in Pinocchio, the fairy, introduced by a bright ball of light entering through the window, “awakens” Pinocchio but in order for Pinocchio to be a real boy he must first prove himself to society. The fact that Pinocchio is indeed a puppet indicates that Pinocchio will always be subject to societal manipulation and corruption. This societal manipulation and corruption is also an issue in Frankenstein because no one is willing to accept the creature. The creature is subhuman, a mosaic of body parts, and not even his creator can see him as beautiful for who he is. Forced to live in uninhabited areas away from the human race, the creature is also on a quest for acceptance from society and to be respected enough to have a companion.

            Immediately after this initial creation and awakening, is a continuation of the creation scene, when the creator discovers the creature. Geppetto stumbles out of bed awakened by a crashing noise, a possible parallel to the stereotypical storm and lightning associated with the creation scene, and sees Pinocchio in the glimmer of light produced from his candle. Looking back at Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein first sees that his creature has been given life by seeing the creatures eyes “by the glimmer of the half extinguished [candle] light” (Shelley 60). The dim candlelight at night helps to set the mysterious and suspenseful atmosphere for both texts and when the light illuminates the creature, there is a sense of realization, surprise, and chaos that ensues.

            In general Disney films are brightly colored and happy and when something bad is about to happen the colors darken and the villains are almost always clad in black. In Pinocchio, the creation and discovery scene are dimly lit. The discovery took place at night for reasons, other than just paralleling Frankenstein. This dim and dark lighting indicates a tone and atmosphere toward creation and possible future problems with society. As mentioned earlier, when the fairy is introduced by a sudden brightness, we see a transition and an indication that something magical is happening. Something beyond ordinary life is about to occur and put a twist in the story.

            As the film progresses, there are numerous correlations between Pinocchio and Frankenstein, but one of the most telling comparisons comes from the scene when Pinocchio has been caged and the fairy has come to console him. In this conversation, Pinocchio lies about his prior intentions despite her warnings, and in response to each lie, his nose grows. This scene is mainly about emphasis of flaws in characters and how society consequently views the characters. The moral is that lies and their consequences grow overtime, which transcends from Frankenstein as Victor learns that creating the monster and keeping such a beast as a secret not only isolates the creature, but him as well, from society. Pinocchio was not a real boy and had no conscious as to what was right and wrong until he was able to prove himself worthy. Similarly, the creature was not a real human. In both cases, the characters were alienated, manipulated, and isolated from society, making it more difficult for them to be accepted into a normal lifestyle.

            The fact that Pinocchio was interpreted into an animated film further complicates the parallel between the fairy tale and Frankenstein. Animated, by definition, means to bring to life, so Disney brought life to many still images to create a film. Within this animated film, is an animated character Pinocchio. Anima can also refer to spirit, which is extremely fitting in both texts because each character was fabricated and now is in search for its spirit and soul in hopes of being accepted in society.

           In addition to the type of film, the production of the film is also significant. Editing is a common stage in both writing and filming, and even in creating puppets. Mary Shelley did not print and publish her first draft of Frankenstein, it is most likely that she edited and changed her ideas numerous times. Walt Disney and the editors cut and paste and fabricated the film in order to show the audience what they wanted and to tell a story. Frankenstein’s creature and Pinocchio were edited and fabricated, pieced together, whether with wood or actual body parts. Furthering the characters’ quest for acceptance, editing gives the creator a chance to manipulate and influence the product so that society will perceive the character in a negative way.

           Not only do Frankenstein and Pinocchio share plot elements, but they also share production elements that further complicate their relationship, regardless of their type of media. Whether it is writing, film production, making a puppet, or sewing together a monster, editing and lighting influence the final product and how society interacts with that product. Not only is Pinocchio a counterpart to Frankenstein but reality, too, shares some aspects of the Frankenstein story. The editor and maker of this movie had a say in the story and they interpreted the film and story in a certain way, shown to the audience through the different camera angles, film techniques, and characters. The editors had the power to alter what the audience saw in the film, just as Geppetto and Frankenstein altered what society saw in their creatures.

           Late one night, an ambitious man sits in his workshop, toiling with his work, piecing together his masterpiece. This ambitious man ─ a mad-scientist, a puppeteer, a film editor ─ created a story of a creature’s life and its interactions with society. Exposing the flaws and prejudices against them, the audience begins to empathize with the creatures. We see that it is not the creatures’ fault for their present condition; it is more due to the fact that society has branded them as social monsters. Frankenstein and Pinocchio are not unalike. In both story and film, the two texts share a flawed creation and a prejudiced and manipulative human race. Pinocchio and Frankenstein introduce new ideas and make a statement about our own society. Perhaps our own society is just as prejudiced and manipulative as in the texts and it’s plausible that there are ramifications of our own actions that are yet to come. At some point in our lives, we will meet a “Pinocchio,” someone who we perceive as different and maybe even useful to us, and how we regard them will influence their acceptance within society.

Looking deeper and darker

Frankenstein. A first response to such a statement would be: horror, dark, monster. Pinocchio. Ok, happy, puppet, Disney. What I did not realize though is how dark a story Pinocchio is. Surprisingly when comparing these two, Pinocchio and Frankenstein actually have several commonalities and Pinocchio can even be considered a lighter version of Frankenstein.

I chose to focus on two scenes in the Walt Disney 1940 film, Pinocchio. The story of Pinocchio actually was first introduced in 1883 in the book The Adventures of Pinocchio written by Carlo Collodi. The story of Frankenstein was written by Mary Shelley in 1818.

The first scene was when Geppetto has finished creating Pinocchio and then when he realizes that he is alive. This scene is more complex than it seems because within this creation scene is another paralleling element showing that Pinocchio wants and needs to prove himself to society in order to be a “real boy.”

Geppetto wishes upon the wishing star that Pinocchio would be a real boy, and immediately after Jiminy Cricket says that it is a nice thought but “not at all practical”. This mirrors Frankenstein’s desire to make his creature “real” and society’s disbelief of such an experiment being successful.

When the fairy is about to come and make Pinocchio a real boy, there is a ball of light entering through the window and the scene, which takes place at night, suddenly becomes very bright. This change in lighting indicates a change and that a turning point in the story has approached.

Also, in Pinocchio, there is a moment of brief chaos before the fairy awakens Pinocchio. While Jiminy is sleeping the clocks in Geppetto’s workshop are ticking loudly and everyone is snoring. There is a brief moment when Jiminy seems to go insane with all the noise. This moment leads into Pinocchio’s awakening and foreshadows future complications. This can also compare to Frankenstein and his temporary, or arguably longer term, insanity when creating his creature.

In Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein describes his first encounter with the live form of his creature and he describes seeing the creatures eyes for the first time “by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light” (Shelley 61). Similarly in Pinocchio, Geppetto discovers Pinocchio has been “awakened” by the light of his burning candle at night. The glimmer of the candlelight in both cases indicates a mysterious and ominous situation.

The second scene is the infamous for when Pinocchio lies and his nose grows, emphasizing his flaws. The moral of this scene is that lies grow out of hand over time. In juxtaposition, in Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein practically goes insane trying to keep his creature a secret. Frankenstein is keeping his creature as a lie and the resulting havoc to society and his family keeps growing and the creature must deal with the additional consequences of being created.

Frankenstein and Pinocchio share very similar plots to a certain extent. For example, both Frankenstein and Pinocchio were created, and were created by someone who was caught up in the thrill of making the creature rather than focusing on the after product. Both Frankenstein and Pinocchio wanted something more in their life. Pinocchio’s famous line “I’m a real boy” and Frankenstein’s creature’s desires to be normal, be accepted, have a companion. Both Frankenstein and Pinocchio have obvious emphasis of their flaws. Pinocchio’s nose grows when he lies, an obvious flaw; and Frankenstein’s creature is subhuman, a collage of human parts, an obvious flaw. Both their appearances inhibit and influence their lack of acceptance and alienation in society.