Reaction to Public Secrets

Public Secrets is a fantastic example of Electronic Literature.  Public Secrets was written by Sharon Daniel and Erik Loyer, they define public secrets as, “a secret kept in an unacknowledged but public agreement not to know what imprisonment really means to individuals and their communities.” They studied and interviewed female prisoners at Central California Women’s Faculty.

 

The story shows the brutality and lack of attention most individual’s needs. Because this is electronic literature it is not simply a story. As you enter the website you are able to choose your own path or prisoner to focus on. Once you select an interesting quote or woman you are taken to their story and have the option to read or have the female narrate her own story, which adds an interesting twist onto an already interesting approach to imprisonment. Throughout their stories the listener is able to hear the pain in their voice, which is not available to someone who solely reads the articles. Since you are able to hear the pain and regret in their voices, you then are able to connect more to the story. The authors did not take this approach to attempt to gain sympathy for these women but to simply gain understanding of the “public secrets” that take place at prisons. This is one of my favorite pieces so far in the course. I love the approach of adding real women’s voice to their tales. Just reading these stories probably would not have interested me as much as the electronic literature did. This leads me to wonder what type of story reading/listening future generations will be able to gain access to. The personalization of this article makes the entire piece. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBITGyJynfA

Right now society is going through a female imprisonment obsession partly due to the new hit Netflix series “Orange is the New Black”. I feel if this story gained more publicity it would be very popular in current culture.