“Follow the White Rabbit”

Mostly everyone knows the story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (aka Alice in Wonderland), an original narrative written by Lewis Carroll in 1865. It is about a young girl who is bored with the norm and wishes that every day in life held a new adventure. The story begins with her sitting outside by a river with her sister reading a book that has no pictures where Alice wonders, “what is the use of the book without pictures and dialogue?,” and she slowly loses interest. She notices a white rabbit wearing a waistcoat, standing upright, and looking at a pocket watch saying aloud, “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late.” Alice may not take notice of the fact that the rabbit is wearing clothes, standing upright or talking but she does, however, wonder “what could a white rabbit possibly be late for?” Her curiosity motivates her to chase after the white rabbit and follow him right down a rabbit hole into an alternate realm called, Wonderland.

The narrative elements presented by David Herman in Basic Elements of Narrative can be used to freely describe any narrative structure. Today I will be telling you what those narrative elements are and how they relate to Alice in Wonderland, as well as, explaining transmedia narrative and the value of it.

Situatedness

The novel of Alice in Wonderland has 12 chapters, each of which serves a purpose to introduce a new setting, characters, and ideas or themes related to the scope of the narrative being told. These chapters all present a certain situatedness or setting.

Each chapter has an image that gives you an idea of what the setting of the scene is like within that narrative section. Chapter 1 is the introduction of the white rabbit and how he appears. Chapter 2 is an illustration of Alice growing in size when she eats a cookie that has “eat me” spelled out in icing and cries because now she’s too big to get through the door to Wonderland. Chapter 3 is the scene after her pool of tears turns into an ocean that takes her to a distant island, where she meets a dodo bird and other talking animals, trying to find the white rabbit.

World making & Disruption

World making & disruption are more than particular sequences unfolding within more or less richly detailed story worlds. These narrative elements are represented with situations and events that depart from the official order of things. For example, we get this sense of order as the chapters are put together chronologically and in every retelling of Alice in Wonderland the story is told in the same sequence. But what if in reality some of the events told were really out of order? (Well figuratively speaking at least). We get the feeling of corruption and disruption when Alice finally meets the Mad Hatter and March Hare, two characters who represent mental illness but also have big personalities and play well with words within the context of the world that is made surrounding the narrative, Wonderland.

What it’s like…

What is it really like? This narrative element is where the story represents and makes it possible to experience what it is like to undergo events within a story world. “What it’s like” is accomplished when the narrative roots itself in the lived, felt experience of human or human like agents interacting in an ongoing way with their allies and surrounding environment. The readers know what it’s like through the descriptive features presented in the story to describe each character, scene, and situation, which create an imagery in their minds.

Transmedia Elements

Alice in Wonderland is a century old narrative that has been recreated in more than 10 ways. Even in narratives that we may not have noticed during our childhood have representations of symbols and motifs sampled from the original novel as a result of transmedia storytelling: a single story or story experience being told across multiple platforms and formats including, but not limited to, games, books, events, cinema and television.

A prime example of transmedia is shown in the movie, Matrix, where we find clear references to Alice in Wonderland.

1. Neo is told to “follow the white rabbit” and in his first meeting with Morpheus references to Alice and the rabbit hole (which is the Matrix) are made.
2. The author of Alice in Wonderland is Lewis Carroll. He is referenced in the movie as Johnny’s friend, Agent Lewis.
3. Dujour has a tattoo of a white rabbit on her shoulder. Also, both Hope and Tiera from the Matrix comics had white rabbit stuffed animal toys.
4. The Zion Archives feature an unlock-able level that have a hologram of a leprechaun as a reference to the Mad Hatter.
5. One of the Merovingians’ (a group of red pills) named himself Madhattah.
6. Red & Blue pills: “You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” Essentially the blue pill represents Alice’s memory and consciousness of Wonderland being real or not, whereas the red pill represents the key to Wonderland and the entire narrative of how deep the rabbit hole is and all the characters/people you’ll meet on the way.

The references made in the Matrix to the classic narrative of Alice in Wonderland demonstrate how transmedia really works: from one form of narrative to another. Transmedia is a valuable form of narrative to understand because we see it everyday when writers publish their work from novels into movies which turns into fan fiction and/or fan made art, podcast series, social media memes, and real life references.

At the end of the day, “We’re all mad here” and with various discourse platforms we have plenty of room for experimentation of the same narrative over and over.

If you want to check out more Alice in Wonderland references made in the Matrix, watch this 4-minute YouTube video. For more information on the examples that I used please check out the Matrix Wiki site page.

Eye of the Storm

By Brittany Rosario & Henry North

In Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men Episode 45, “A Woman Who Could Fly,” the casting duo go over many things: Forge and the Adversary, the narrative impact of sexualization, the dynamic art stylings of Barry Windsor Smith, and colonialism; however, the main focus of this episode is Ororo Munroe, better known as Storm, and her role and character development in Uncanny X-Men #198: Life-Death II.

Rachel and Miles are well versed in this topic of discussion. It is very clear that they read the X-Men comics and have the knowledge to be able to properly produce this podcast. They use direct quotes from parts of the comics to assist in their explanation and breakdown of what happened in the story. Whenever they notice a reference to previous comics or the usage of parallels to events in past comics, they make sure to mention it and explain what those details mean in both stories.

As they go through the discussion of Life-Death II, they constantly jump between talking about Storm’s story in that comic and weave in details about comic theory related to the topic. They mention Africa being used like a country rather than a continent, the lack of strong female characters of color in superhero comics, and the liminality of Storm compared to the other X-Men.

Rachel and Miles even go outside of discussing the comics and have a discussion on how Storm has “never been done well in adaptations,” such as in the live-action X-Men movies and the animated television series. The discussion continues into a talk about what actress they feel should best represent the role of Storm in a live-action movie, because they didn’t like Halle Berry’s Storm and aren’t too sure about Alexandra Shipp for the upcoming role of younger Storm in X-Men: Apocalypse, estimated to be released in May 2016.They even created an elevator pitch about how to best convey to film writers and directors exactly who Storm is and how she should be portrayed.

The narrative elements and structure used in this episode of the

podcast series, Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men, relate to the text from Chapter one of Basic Elements of Narrative by David Herman. In the chapter, Herman talks about how narrative is defined by creating a communicative interaction to tell a story. This is used in the podcast where Rachel and Miles are conversationally telling the story of Storm and other characters in the X-Men comic series. Narrative is a basic human strategy that we use to share information with our audience whether that audience is one other person, a crowd of people, or a digital audience that could be thousands.

In the chapter, Herman also talks about the distinction between phonetic and phonemic, where phonetic is more about structure and phonemic is more only important to the people studying it. I think this this particular podcast series does a good job of breaking that distinction to make it more mixed where we know that this isn’t a completely random recording and that Rachel and Miles put the time in to come up with a structure, record, edit, and then publish. For that reason it is phonetic. However, it is also phonemic because the audience for X-Plain the X-Men really only pertains to people who love X-Men, want to know more about it, are fans of the movies or just anyone who find it interesting. If the audience and purpose weren’t factors in this type of narrative structure then the podcast would really just be a live recording of people having a conversation and discussing their values about a random topic or whatever comes to mind.

In the end, the podcast series, Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men, provides substantial information about X-Men character, Storm in the Episode 45: “A Woman Who Could Fly” and also serves as a narrative structure that is both phonetic and phonemic according to David Herman’s narrative theory.

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In response to the issues brought up in their podcast, we made a podcast of our own. Enjoy!

Metamorphosis: Collab 1 Response Paper

Group Members: Eryka Martin, Britteney Arnold, and Brittany Rosario

After reading through the short stories presented in Eagleman’s ‘Sum’, the most interesting to the group was ‘Metamorphosis’. In this short observation of the afterlife, the reader is told that there are “three deaths”; which compare to the stages of a caterpillar’s metamorphosis.

George Oates, European Butterflies and Moths, from flickr creative commons

One of these deaths (the caterpillar stage) is the kind of death that creates familiarity, which is when the body ceases to function. At this point, loved ones say their goodbyes, to remember the person who has passed on. The second death (the cocoon stage) takes place at the grave. This is when the stories of a beings life is told, and their memory is “refreshed”. Finally there is the third death (butterfly). The last person who remembered the deceased in life, has either finally forgotten them, or has passed on themselves. It’s been years since they have gone through the first two stages of death. During the long wait for the memory of their life to disappear from the living world, there is a “lobby” for the ones waiting to move on.

According to Eagleman, this could be something that everyone goes through. Given the information found in this short story, we can see how it relates to Herman’s basic elements of narrative:

           (i) situatedness,

          (ii) event sequencing,

          (iii) worldmaking/ world disruption and

          (iv) what it’s like.

‘Situatedness’, refers to the plot setting. Basically where and what the story looks like. In ‘Metamorphosis’, we’re given a mundane environment: a lobby filled with aisle after aisle of seating. Eagleman describes it as “an infinite airport waiting area”. So if this is where the dead go for the next stage, they’re in for a very slow, monotonous wait.

‘Event sequencing’, carefully puts together the structure of the story. At the beginning of ‘Metamorphosis’, the main character is described. This person seems to have just arrived in the lobby, and is just getting their bearings. Among the unfortunate souls there are those who are remembered not by the vast amounts of knowledge, discoveries, or talent they possessed, but by some twisted truth that keeps them there. This is the finale – those who remain in the waiting room are doomed to wait for decades, become desperate, and called forth to the other side.

‘Worldmaking/world disruption’, refers to the “lives” of those who are forced to wait, unsure of whether they want to move on or not. Unsure of whether they’re ready to accept that no one on earth remembers them, or of if they’ll even be able to leave. Their conflicts are internal, and revolve round the belief that something good awaits them on the other side.

‘What it’s like’, is based on opinion. We all feel relatively different depending on what we took away from the story. Some might feel pity for those who are forced to stay behind; others, curiosity. The characters themselves are all feeling differently as well. In the end, no one knows what will follow the three stages of death or if such a thing exists.

Hello to my fellow Writers!

Thank you for taking the time to check out my blog. I am looking forward to sharing my story with you about my journey as a writer: where I’ve been, where I’m at now, and where I’m going.

Please keep in mind that this is an academic blog so there might be more specific content than you might intend to see from me.

Happy Blogging!! 🙂