The image above gives more than just an
interlude into Christine Wilks' e-lit work "Fitting the Pattern."
Likewise, the Flash narrative conveys a specific idea about how identity is
both shaped and represented utilizing our modern day digital literature as a
lens. Accordingly, Wilks states at the beginning description of her work that
"here stitches are links, cloth fragments also textual fragments, and the
reader is the tailor who must bring it all together to complete the pattern and
make the narrative cohere." In this way, both choice and chance seem to
intertwine in this clever work of mash-ups and non-linear narration, whereas a
girl's gendered identity gets compared and measured against the shadow of her
mother's figure. Thus, it is apparent that identity is all at once a fluid and
yet fragmented part of being that becomes constructed via the process of
socialization, or interaction, in which experiences may vary.
Through the intentional use of
multi-modal elements, such as sound, image, and advanced effects, Wilks creates
a work which imagines and shows the way that format and content function in
tandem to make new, and highlight existing, meanings regarding how memory and
relationships determine identity. As the reader dives into the work and opens up
the first screen page, they are presented with the 'jello-like' two-dimensional
animation of a female form, which shrinks and expands, evoking the very idea of
'fitting the pattern.' There is also a 'page layout' included, which appears as
pieces that need threading together in order to conduct both narrative and
character identity. Wilks additionally includes four dress-making tools (or
cursor images) to choose from in (any) order to cut, sew, pin, and unpick
clothing. These tools also make unique sounds of their own when in use, adding
mnemonic devices which ironically affect the reader's memories and, likely,
their construction of the daughter's identity. For instance, when the scissors
are chosen as a utensil, their cutting literally intermingles with the changing
of the page or text. In this regard, the use of them enforces the meaning of
the text and textiles that are fabricated on the screen. Additionally, the tool
sounds faintly resemble those of writing tools (i.e. a printer, fax machine, a
typewriter etc.), provoking the reader to both engage and draw on their own
ideas, and bridge connections to memories. For example, sounds related to
copying, tearing, typing or the construction of identical models. As if Wilks
is implying an intentional echo effect, including sound, image, and text
movement, in order to construe the interweaving of memory, writing, and the
relationship in between.
In conclusion, it appears that Wilks'
"Fitting the Pattern" not only deliberately shows how memory and
relationships forge identity. But it also conveys how construction not always
involves the same method, or linearity, which subsequently affects a different
outcome (or construction) as well. Thus, many elements (multi-modal),
especially in the case of this digital work, are utilized interchangeably to
create, tear apart, and rebuild different models each and every time the reader
interacts. As a result, the daughter's identity will never exactly fit that of
her mother's. Similar to a hand-made dress made following the exact same
instructions, the odds of an identical copy are not probable. Therefore, the
elements work with the stereotypical idea of construction by working against
it. By deconstructing preconceived notions of the process of linearity in
either storytelling, or the fabrication of a copied identity, simultaneously,
Wilks' e-lit work shows how format and content are symbiotically related; such
as one form or another (i.e. identity) cannot exist without the other.
