Themes of Death Depicted in Electronic Literature

Part 2: Communicating Ideas with Imagery

In the opening screen of "Girls Day Out" powerful imagery is present. At first glance the images depicted seem cheery and bright but right when the reader is about to click on them the images shift to something foreboding. Underneath the colorful images is something darker and obscure, as depcited below in the video of the opening screen. This imagery represents an important aspect of death and murder that the poem revolves around: death is part of everyday life even if it is hiding. In Mark Stephen Meadows Pause and Effect, he states that, "Image is powerful when it comes to communicating ideas" (34). In this section, Meadows dives into the idea that children can learn sign language  as opposed to written words and remember values taught in their favorite TV shows because they are extremely visual (34). In many ways, pictures are much more powerful than words. In this case, Lawrynovics employs the use of powerful imagery in order to convey her message about death and set the eerie tone of her work of literature. In addition to the powerful imagery present in the images to the right and left, the mechanics and interactivity of the opening screen of the poem is depicted below. The reader must interact with the peice in order to "discover" that the images change. This interactivity is crucial because it forces the reader to see the change in color and encourages them to question why the change happens. The interactivity encourages thought about the hidden message in the changing of the images, which is vital to the overall theme and tone of the work. 

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