Umeå University

Graduate Student, HUMlab

Thesis Title: Narrative Freedom: techniques for the control of reading in four works of digital literature

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This dissertation uses close readings based on theories of narratology to explain how four digital literary works enforce particular images and understandings in reception. In doing so the dissertation demonstrates how these works restrict the possibilities for input and interpretation in reading. Thus interaction as an element of narrative is developed as a critical concept for understanding digital literature.

The texts examined are Façade by Michael Matteas and Andrew Sterne, Last Meal Requested by Sachiko Hayashi, Dreamaphage by Jason Nelson and Egypt: The Book of Going Forth by Day by M. D. Coverley. These are ‘born digital’ works written specifically for the computer screen. The dissertation explains how these works disable interpretations and responses that fall outside a relatively narrow band of narrative possibilities.

In determining the restrictive nature of the digital works, interaction is made a media specific part of narrative in reception. Interaction in digital works of literature is about controlling responses and guiding interpretations in ways that differ considerably from other forms of creative writing. As Jessica Pressman observes, “emergent forms of electronic literature complicate the ways in which we think about and engage with literature” (Navigating 10). Responding to Pressman’s challenge of thinking and engaging with emergent forms of electronic literature, the following analysis demonstrates how reading is anticipated and what constraints are placed upon it in order for the digital works to function as narrative media.

The main aim of this study is to present a comprehensive analysis of the selected digital texts according to how narrative is developed. By doing so, the dissertation provides a detailed account of what interactive digital literature can require in reading. The media specific narrative elements that control reading in the works include space, place, haptics (touch simulation) and audio. As a result of the present examination, earlier analyses of digital interactive literature are interrogated, as the structures that drive and produce narrative are analyzed and explained in terms of media specific analysis. Terminology such as “wreader” (Landow 2006 20), which is used to describe readers as choosing links and taking on creative qualities associated with writing, does not explain how these works function as narratives. Regenerating older concepts provides little insight into the nature of digital works as literary and communicative media and instead lends weight to the argument traceable to Espen Aarseth (2004 326), on the colonization of digital media theory by already established academic disciplines.

Media specific examples such as the relationships in narrative between the spaces represented in the works and images of gender and class are explored in this dissertation. The representation of space is a major theme in the present study, as it is used to influence reader interpretation via narrative. The narrative perspectives created by the representation of place and haptics are examples of media specific narrative techniques for the control of reading. Audio in the works is related to the space of the works and it is used to orientate and direct the reader in their navigation. Each media specific component of narrative combines to create the overall effect of the work in reading.

This dissertation contributes to the field of narratology and digital media by clarifying how media specific elements are combined in key digital literary works from the perspectives of interpretation. This is achieved by applying narrative analysis to the material components of works in which narrative is more performed by the reader than observed. The role of performance in such digital works has opened them to analysis from game studies, with many crossover points between the input of players and the interpretation of readers. However to restrict the analysis of such creative and complex forms of expression to the category of play is to underestimate the deep cultural meanings embodied in the works as literature.

As this study demonstrates, these are authored works of creative literature, and while not enduring in the sense of a canonical register, they exhibit literary meanings. Along with attention to narrative theory and literature, this study adapts from game studies theory, particularly in relation to the narrative power of place in spatial configurations and the role of perspective in the construction of narrative.

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