The Brain Drawing the Bullet
The Brain Drawing the Bullet is a hypertext, narrative fiction that tells the story of an editor writing about an accidental killing, whose obsession with the piece slowly turns him into the killer, until he commits the same crime down to where the bullet hits, completing his transition of total loss of identity. The story is told as a fragmented narratives where pieces of the orientation and rising actions are slowly revealed in a disorderly fashion, making the reader increasingly unsettled. The editor writes letters to another man at the newspaper staff, and from these letters and newspaper excerpts we see his character development. The editor becomes increasingly unhinged and irritable through the letters, as his obsession grows stronger. The words he wrote began to impact his identity and define who he was. The story also examines authorial power and storytelling, as the editor wants to correctly tell the story of "William S. Burroughs’ infamous murder of his wife Joan Vollner,"(Editorial Statement). As the story is told and retold, we get different variations on the story. Although it is to be believed that the initial account of the wife’s murder is the most reliable, the reader must acknowledge that no one will truly know the story of how Joan Vollner died. From what readers can deduce, William and Joan had friends over, who had all been drinking and someone, most likely William, suggested that he try to shoot a glass off of Joan’s head similar to William Tell. As it is told in all variations of the story, he missed and instead shot Joan in the head “4.5mm to the left of the midline of her forehead.”We learn about this through changing Newspaper articles drafted by G that are edited and redrafted by L so that finally it appears as if William is completely innocent and perhaps even glorified. Readers are able to see the power of storytelling and narratives through the three drafts of the incident, where the same basic plot is relayed, however, the specific detail surrounding the event are changed. Were they all drinking or, was it just the wife, did the gun go off accidentally or was William attempting to shoot a glass off of his wife’s head? The ambiguity of the story and the distrust in the narrator leaves these questions unanswered completely, although we are all able to make our own assumptions.
