From Hopscotch to Bandersnatch: the narrative paths of hyperfiction

OS CAMINHOS NARRATIVOS DA HIPERFICÇÃO

Abstract

This article aims to explore the concept of hyperfiction from two analogical narratives presented in the middle of the twentieth century, specifically Jorge Luis Borges’s tale “The Garden of Forking Paths” (1941), and Julio Cortázar’s novel “Hopscotch” (1963), to develop an analysis of Bandersnatch’s digital narrative, the first interactive movie made by the creators of the Black Mirror series, released in December 2018 on the Netflix streaming platform. When entering digital support, the hyperfiction has the striking feature of enabling hypertext-mediated interaction, to a greater or lesser extent, allowing the reader/viewer/user to decide on the course of the story. The reflection presented in this article, therefore, intends to understand these new narrative paths of fiction in the era of hypermedia, conceptualized as hyperfiction – a contemporary phenomenon that erases the demarcated boundaries between literature, movies, games and hypertexts.

Keywords: Hyperfition; Bandersnatch; hypertexts; digital narrative.