A Critical Study of Judy Malloy’s ‘its name was Penelope’ as a Hyperfictional Reworking of Homer’s Odyssey

Abstract

The hyperfiction “its name was Penelope” is an assemblage of memories of an artist Anne Mitchell. She is a photographer and the hyperfiction under study provides several glimpses from her life as a medley or an assortment of textual pictures that completely engrosses the mindful readers and actively involves them in contemplating her life right from her childhood. She plays with a boat named Penelope and it becomes a metaphor for her life and her struggle for establishing herself as an accomplished artist. Anne’s setting this tiny boat sailing is a metaphor for life in which an artist’s explorations are akin to those of an explorer. A tripartite montage of Anne Mitchell’s life is offered in random screens of text. The entire hyperfiction is divided into three sections that are loosely based on Homer’s Odyssey. Penelope, the wife of Odysseus, is an artist who weaves on a loom and this weaving is central to her life just like Anne Mitchell who is also an artist and considers art central to her life. This paper attempts to trace the similarities between the hyperfiction “its name was Penelope” and Homer’s Odyssey. A traditional text will be juxtaposed with an avant-garde text to foreground the similarities and the differences.