Untitled - witz cultural

239RECONFICURINGNARRATIVEThematic, word-based links act as singular iumps between sections, but, ironically, awoven mass ofthem forms a canvas on which the author mounts scraps ofstructure.Links destabilize-or, more positively-stretch the textto flexibility, by pointingawayfrom themselves, by suggesting the reader might read better elsewhere. But againironically, this pulling apart lends the text its unity, because it permits meanings fromseparate subsections to bleed into one another through the cracks between them,permitting the text's colorings to mix throughout it.eFinally, Williams concludes, he finds it less surprising that such qualities'rappear so fundamental to hypertext and to Patchwork Girl than that earlierliterary forms subdued them."Having glanced at Patchwork Girl's linking topologies and its collage-likefeatures, let us next examine some of the ways they and its themes and techniquesappear in its use of seams, sutures, links, and scars. As Tim McConvillepoints out, cinema "theoreticians use the word suture to describe a film's abilityto cover up cuts and fragments," thereby creating the appearance of "afluid text that reads 'naturally."' But because Patchwork Girl, "llke allhypertextfiction, scoffs at the notion of a neat and tidy text," fackson's patched-togetherprotagonist defines herself by her scars. Thus, although, "like film, PatchworkGirl and all hypertext implement suture,'unlike film, they do not do so "as ameans of holding narrative together in one cohesive unit. |ackson uses suturesto tie various pieces together so that narrative may merely exist. After sutureshave been set in place, the end result is a scar" ("Sutures and Scars").And scars define the Patchwork Girl, Pqtchwork Girl, and, fackson implies,all hypertext. In fact, accordingto Erica Seidel,scars are analogous to hypertextual links. The monster's scars are intimate, integral,the essence of her identity. Similarly, the essence of hypertext is the linking, theprivate ways that the author chooses to arrange her piece, and the reader uses tomeander through it. Just as the monster finds pleasure and identity in her scars,logood hypertext works are defined and distinguished by their unique linking structures.When Shelley and the monster become intimate, she first understands the significanceofthe monster's scars: "l see that your scars not only mark a cut, they alsocommemorate a joining." During this sexual encounter, Shelley genuinely identifieswith the scars. "Her scars lay like livingthings between us, inscribingthemselvesmy skin. What divided her, divided me." Just as the stitchings of skin unite Shelley andthe monster, hypertext links unite author and reader. ("The Hypertextuality ofScars")feffrey Pack's mini-web discussing Potchwork Girltakes this analogy evenfarther, first looking at Webster's definitions of a scar as, "among other