Blurring Ontologies: An Analysis of Metalepsis in Mark C. Marino’s Living Will (2010)
Proposal Type
Individual Talk
Location
Algorithms & Imaginaries
Start Date
July 2026
End Date
July 2026
Abstract
Interactive Fiction, variously known as ‘text adventure’ or ‘text game’, is a genre of digital literature that is characterized by multimodal storytelling technique and active reader-participation. The narrative structure of Interactive Fiction, as the name suggests, allows interactivity between the reader and the digitally-mediated fictional world. This interactivity is a result of the physical and psychological involvement of the reader with the narrative, ensured by the affordance of the digital medium involved. As a result, a certain form of media-specific metalepsis takes place, something quite unique to literature produced on the Web. The digital narrative employs the reader as an active agent in narrative progression via his inputs through the hardware. As such, reader-inputs using the keyboard, mouse, webcam, serve as metaleptic tools for representing the reader’s conscious choice within the narrative. This intentional transgression of ontological levels, blurs the boundaries between the reader/player, the narrator and the diegetic world. The paper aims to study this idea of metalepsis in the select Interactive Fiction Living Will: by E. R. Millhouse (2010) written by Mark C. Marino, through a media-specific analysis of the text. The discussion will further shed light on the nature and performativity of the digital narrative, followed by an insight into the renewed agency of the reader enabled by the digital dimension. The argument in the paper will employ the theoretical framework of Alice Bell and Maire-Laure Ryan, developed in the context of various discussions on metalepsis and Possible Worlds theory in association to digital fiction.
Blurring Ontologies: An Analysis of Metalepsis in Mark C. Marino’s Living Will (2010)
Algorithms & Imaginaries
Interactive Fiction, variously known as ‘text adventure’ or ‘text game’, is a genre of digital literature that is characterized by multimodal storytelling technique and active reader-participation. The narrative structure of Interactive Fiction, as the name suggests, allows interactivity between the reader and the digitally-mediated fictional world. This interactivity is a result of the physical and psychological involvement of the reader with the narrative, ensured by the affordance of the digital medium involved. As a result, a certain form of media-specific metalepsis takes place, something quite unique to literature produced on the Web. The digital narrative employs the reader as an active agent in narrative progression via his inputs through the hardware. As such, reader-inputs using the keyboard, mouse, webcam, serve as metaleptic tools for representing the reader’s conscious choice within the narrative. This intentional transgression of ontological levels, blurs the boundaries between the reader/player, the narrator and the diegetic world. The paper aims to study this idea of metalepsis in the select Interactive Fiction Living Will: by E. R. Millhouse (2010) written by Mark C. Marino, through a media-specific analysis of the text. The discussion will further shed light on the nature and performativity of the digital narrative, followed by an insight into the renewed agency of the reader enabled by the digital dimension. The argument in the paper will employ the theoretical framework of Alice Bell and Maire-Laure Ryan, developed in the context of various discussions on metalepsis and Possible Worlds theory in association to digital fiction.
Bio
Ms. Lopamudra Saha is a Research Scholar in the Department of English, Pondicherry University, India. Her broader area of research is Digital Humanities with particular focus on Electronic Literature produced in India. She did her M.A. in English Literature from The Department of English and Culture Studies, The University of Burdwan, West Bengal, India in the year 2019. She has qualified the UGC National Eligibility Test for the eligibility of Assistant Professorship and Junior Research Fellowship for Indian Universities and Colleges in the year 2019. Her other research interests are Indian English Literature, Science Fiction Literature and Feminist Studies.
She has published a Book Review in Sambalpur Studies in Literatures and Cultures Series in 2022 titled, “Beyond Consumption: India’s New Middle Class in the Neo-Liberal Times. Edited by Manish K Jha and Pushpendra. London and New York: Routledge, 2022. 290 pp. ISBN 9781032250137. Rs. 995”. She has co-authored Research Article titled, “Exploring Women’s Agency in Bengali Feminist Utopian Fiction: An Analysis of Begum Rokeya Hossain’s Sultana’s Dream” with Dr. Harpreet Kaur Vohra, published by Shanlax International Journal of Arts Science and Humanities in 2024, and a Book Chapter titled, “Hypertext as a ‘Palimpsestuous’ Construct: Analysing Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl” with Prof. Ujjwal Jana in the book Digital Humanities in the India Rim: Contemporary Scholarship in Australia and India, published by Open Book Publishers in 2024. She has also published a Research Article titled, “A Study of the Dynamics of Power within the various Relational Equations: Analyzing Shashi Deshpande’s The Dark Holds No Terrors (1980)” in the journal IJOES in 2024.
She has presented multiple Research Papers on varied topics such as: “The Relevance of Genette’s idea of Paratextuality in Analyzing Digitally-Driven Narrative Innovations”; “Exploring the Literary in the Digitized Tagore Archive”; “Hypertext as a Postmodern Construct: Analysing Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl”; “Exploring the politics of the planetary in Ravyne Hawke's dystopian flash fiction ‘Memory Island’ (2020)”; “Exploring the Politics of Power on the female body in Sultana’s Dream through the lens of Foucault’s ‘bio-power’”; “Emphasizing the Discursive Role of the Digital in Contemporary Activism”; “Complexities of Human Relationships in Anita Desai's Novels”; “Comparative Study of Anita Desai's The Village by the Sea and In Custody”; “A Feminist Reading of Desai's Fire on the Mountain” and others, at various National and International Conferences and Seminars. She can be contacted at =91 8617650399; lopamudrasaha23@gmail.com. Her ORCID ID is: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-0822-6569 .