Elements and Meaning in "Pieces of Herself"
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2017-11-18T11:18:33-08:00
“Pieces of Herself” conveys its meaning through its use of the elements of narrative, design, and mechanics. The narrative of the piece is not very structured, and it is up to the player to decide how it unfolds. Generally, as the player explores the settings, they uncover more “pieces” of the protagonist by adding them to the doll and listening to the accompanying audio. The narrative is created through the buildup of objects on the doll, which slowly unveils the worldview of the protagonist as a modern woman. The audio also tells a story, mainly through the quotes from the interviewed women. This combination of visual, textual, and aural elements creates a layered narrative in “Pieces of Herself.”
While “Pieces of Herself” is electronic literature, it also employs mechanics of gameplay to impart its meaning, even though there is no obvious way to “win” or “lose” the game. Roger Caillois defines “play” very generally as a free and voluntary activity separate from real life (125). He also categorizes games into four areas, one of which is prevalent in this work: mimicry (Caillois 135). In “Pieces of Herself,” the player imagines that they are the protagonist as they discover fragments of her identity in the settings around her. By putting themselves in the place of the protagonist, players are also encouraged to contemplate their own identities and think about how their identities are embodied by the objects and places around them. The work is inherently interactive because of the drag-and-drop mechanics and the customizable doll interface. This interactivity allows players to add their own input into the character they create and express themselves (and their identities!) through the work.
The design of the work, and especially the author’s use of color, also convey meaning. In their book “Values at Play in Digital Games,” Mary Flanagan and Helen Nissenbaum argue that video games express values through their art form, which includes the elements of setting, color, and landscape (9). The dull colors of all of the landscapes in “Pieces of Herself” represent some of the darker themes of the work, which center around issues of gender identity. In addition, the lack of color in the settings serves as a contrast to the color and energy of the interactive objects that represent the embodiment of the protagonist in her environment. While the settings are composed of black and white still images, the interactive objects are mainly animated and dynamic. This juxtaposition raises the idea that humans bring places to life by projecting their identities into them.
Colin Crago