An Unwarranted Creation

At first, upon divulging into the hyper-text creation of Shelley Jackson, "Stitch Bitch," I wasn't completely cognizant of what was happening. Though the ideas were discussed in class and through the readings, notably Ted Nelson's, "A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing and the Intermediate," I still didn't quite understand the concept behind the hypertext and the "truth" in the simulacrum that it created. To be frank, I first found the exercise to be ridiculous, but-the great verbal eraser-upon further exploration I found how intricate and brilliant it was. The fact that my experience with this simulation was different from anyone else's experience really struck me; it was the nonlinear structure of the medium, the order in which I read the text was so drastically different from my neighbors, and my interpretation of the text thus followed. It also comprised the idea in the beauty and privilege of forgetting, or remembering when warranted.

I suppose there were two things that really stuck out to me in "Stitch Bitch." The first, I should say, is Jackson's application of creating a parable between the literary work/genius of Mary Shelley and the world of the internet-machine-human memory; the balance that exists in both situations between the real and the non-real. The second count derives itself from this literary reworking, when the patchwork girl, the created monster says how she never wanted to be created, she never wanted to be born from the limbs or ideas of everyone else, but there she was, sewn together by the desires of another. I suppose I also found this o be the most challenging idea, to reconstruct my ideas on the literal and the metaphor. Perhaps a kind of longing for perfection that can never be achieved-the description of being a monster, a design that was meant to be superb, but in actuality is filled with flaws, and has the undesirable task of constantly having pieces of herself forgotten and reupholstered by fleeting whims.