Jaya Sarkar
Ph.D. Scholar, Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, BITS Pilani (Hyderabad Campus). ORCID: 0000-0001-6851-6976. Email: jaya1sarkar@gmail.com
Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s2n2
Abstract
This essay examines Patchwork Girl by Shelley Jackson to reveal how hypertext functions like the posthuman concept of the cyborg defined by Haraway as “a condensed image of bothimagination and material reality.” For the theoretical framework, I draw on Katherine Hayles and Rosi Braidotti’s theories of Posthumanism and cyborg subjectivity, among other Postmodernist Feminist ideas of the body and visual culture. Using these theories, my essay will answer the central question that underlies how this new revisionist and interactive medium of storytelling parodies the traditional roles of the author and the reader. Interpreting a ‘cyborg’ hypertext requires a “cyborg reader,” not only because the reader shares a posthuman connection with the narrative in terms of involving their gestures through touch and click, but also because the hypertext forces the reader to adopt a gaze that is equally modular and fragmentary. My paper argues that just like the medium of hypertext itself, the author and the reader become a part of the cyborg subjectivity.
Keywords: Posthumanism, Cyborg, Hypertext, Haraway, Patchwork Girl, Frankenstein.