Hade,+Eden+T.

Wilks, Christine. “Fitting the Pattern.” Rpt. //In The Electronic Literature Collection//, 2008. []

Other works: [|http://www.crissxross.net]

Eden Hade
 * MEDIA SPECIFIC ANALYSIS**

Christine Wilks’s piece, //Fitting the Pattern//, illustrates a young girl’s (and later, young woman’s) struggle with her relationship with her mother, a dressmaker. As indicated in the introduction to the piece, Wilks literalizes the mother’s act of weaving into the daughter’s act of writing about her personal experiences: “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.” This memoir serves to show the mother as twofold: a selfless working class mother, but also as the source of the daughter’s discomfort with her image. Essentially, the overall storyline reflects the complicated, and often dysfunctional, aspects of a mother-daughter relationship.
 * OVERVIEW**


 * TEXTUAL FEATURES**
 * Two distinct voices/storylines: pre-teen and young adult (presumably in her 20s). A third voice/storyline, the mother’s, omnipresent in the work
 * Form: ergotic memoir, //almost// an ode to the mother and her profession as a dressmaker
 * Non-linear narrative (that is also linear in scope/framing), unfolds in the form of snapshots of the daughter’s memories, which are always intertwined with the mother's dressmaking (symbolism abounds).
 * Text is attached to domestic artifact; it can be visited continually while on the screen, but readers cannot return to a page once they have proceeded forward with the storyline.
 * Shift in voice and time depending upon which tool readers choose.


 * SPACIAL FEATURES**
 * Opening page: utilizing theme/symbol of dressmaking (and the items that accompany the act of dressmaking) that carries throughout the narrative, and the mother’s obsessive need to make everything “fit” her daughters perfectly.
 * Dressmaker’s doll, itemized list of measurements for a woman, female dolls expand and contract according to the size chart.
 * Instructions: appear simple until readers realize the entrapment and anxiety of choice, much like the design of dresses.
 * Simplistic design to the page in order for the text to “upstage” animation and audio.
 * Clear-ish beginning, middle, and end of narrative, as shown by dress pattern in right corner.
 * User-readers are constrained by the author’s use of animated domesticated artifacts (i.e. if the readers choose the scissors animation, they must complete all tasks before moving forward).


 * MEDIA FEATURES**
 * Domestic sounds of the dressmaking tools cutting through silence.
 * Sounds echo in the author’s mind as a direct connection to her mother and childhood experiences.
 * Silence is illustrative of void between the two women.
 * Interactivity of the narrative: reader-users must choose a tool to navigate each page.

- The American Dream – rising up from working class, generational success - The complicated mother-daughter relationship. - Coming of age (and the cyclic fear/anxiety of becoming one’s parents). - Appearance versus reality (i.e. the narrator //looked// wealthier than she was due to her mother’s ability to design quality clothing). - Memory and psychology (author’s perspective projected onto the mother).
 * THEMATIC FEATURES**

Wilks’s narrative is easily accessible by user-readers on the screen, complete with the initial directions on the title screen as well as guiding arrows throughout the narrative screens. User-readers are able to choose a dressmaking tool (scissors, pins, sewing machine, or unpick) and use that domestic item to access the text. In the side corner, readers can view their journey into the E-text by the number of patterns that are darkened (if darkened, then that chapter/screen is complete). The basic black drawings against the whiteness of the screen, highlight the red text that jumps off the screen once a task is completed. The domestic sounds nicely complement the narrator’s childhood audible experiences in the mother’s sewing room. On a literary level, Wilks’s text illustrates a female experience that is universal: the bond of mother and daughter. The author’s memoir centers around her anxiety of “not ever getting it right” and follows a narrative path (though non-linear) of childhood insecurity into an overly anxious adulthood.
 * READING EXPERIENCE**

Unfortunately, here begins a commentary on the pitfalls of technology and E-lit as a literary medium. As I journeyed throughout the author’s memoir and the patterns of the dress, I came to a chapter/screen in which the sewing machine animation could not complete its assigned task of uncovering the text of the author’s narrative. Because of the authorial control, I was unable to skip this task and move onward to the next dressmaking tool and further the narrative.

Initially, user-readers empathize with the daughter who never felt she “achieved the perfect fit;” however, the mother is the more compelling, complex character. Her dedication to the art of dressmaking is directly juxtaposed with her seemingly harsh judgments of her children: “she preferred to assume we were size 10...bulges accentuated.” Consequently, readers have compassion for the mother’s Old World, traditional ethos as mother and worker. Her life is a daily monotony of scissors, patterns, needles, and thread. Her art imprisons her. Yet, she goes on. Wilks effortlessly achieves this dichotomy of perspective, and both women are survivors of their environment and respective situations.
 * ANALYSIS/INTERPRETATION**

Brief commentary on gaze (reminiscent of Susan Bordo): The mother’s gaze as a mother and dressmaker unsettles the narrator, reinforcing her negative perception of her body. Being fitted for a dress is a personal, exposed, naked experience. The narrator’s memory is obscured by her muscle memory of her mother’s scrutiny and the feelings of self-worth attached to the mother’s gaze. Later, the author realizes her mother’s close examination was coupled with fear that her dresses would not sell and her sewing classes would not have paying participants. It is in these moments in which the narrator has brief glimpses of understanding her mother and her selflessness towards her family.

The textual and thematic complexity of Christine Wilks's piece was a literary success, and I enjoyed that the text overshadowed the animated "bells and whistles" of other E-lit. Pedagogically, the digital literature's interactivity was minimal (but fun!), and the text encouraged critical thinking, especially with theme. Though the mother-daughter relationship and working class status can often be viewed as cliched, overused narratives, there is a sense of nakedness to this piece that shows the depth of the literary work. At points I questioned if the stereotyping was exaggerated, especially that of the working class mother, but Wilks reigned in at the right moments to focus on the maternal relationship between mother and daughter. Also, the controlled narrative could be a critique of this work, but, again, if we are focusing on the digital literature as a relevant discourse in academia, then some authorial control must be granted, especially in regards to a well-written, creative work.