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• 1 2019-11-14T18:34:28-08:00 The Voices 6 By: Alice Jiang plain 2019-11-18T08:27:52-08:00

  Stories are always told for a reason, they have always been an essential aspect of our lives from when we were little kids to even now as adults. According to Mark Meadows3, in his book Pause & Effect: The Art of Interactive Narrative, he has stated that narration is very common in our society. It can be seen anywhere from movies to newspapers to even phone calls. Its purpose is to inform, entertain and educate where oftentimes it provides meaning, background, and context to its readers. 

  In Public Secret, the testimonies that we hear from the inmates serve as a narration; a story that they have to tell.  The stories are used to make sense of what is going on in our society, or rather more specifically what is not being publicly told to us, where the electronic literature platform can be used to share their understanding with others who are reading it. 

  As the readers navigate through the literature, they can click on a specific quote and hear a clip of the interview that the inmates had with Daniel. As seen from the previous page on not being able to see the inmates the design of the whole literature makes it seem like the inmates are very close to us. By just closing our eyes and closely listening to these women talk about their story, it causes us to forget about the computer screen that is in front of us and the physical distance between all of us. With just the voice, the audience is able to develop a personal connection with them. 

  From just listening to the story, these women are able to plan ideas, thoughts, and emotions into the listener’s brain. We are able to empathize with them more and begin to understand that they too are just human beings who have made mistakes. They once too had dreams, families, and a home to go back to. Listening allows the listeners to realize how involved we may be separated from them by these black and white lines, in reality, we are very close to these women. This may ultimately be the reason why public secrets are kept so well because everyone feels like they can’t say anything and that no one else feels the same way. If thought about closely, there will always be someone else who will empathize with you, it is rather just how much effort you input to cross the black and white line.