TIME

The Rainbow Factory

I am going to analyze the Peter Howard’s hypertext whose name is The Rainbow Factory by the aspect and point of view of time. It is not easy to use time as analysis, because this is a, most of all, graphic hypertext, what means there is a big absence of text.
My analysis is going to be based in every screen we can find into the hypertext. First I will start with the “welcome” pages and then I will analyze the time of every window we can find on the factory, one by one. I hope it will help people who are interested on it, to understand it much better. I will write about the external and internal time and sometimes I will write some of my opinions and thoughts.


When we press on the link which takes us to The Rainbow Factory, the first thing we can watch is an awesome presentation of it with the title and a graphic cartoon to show us what kind of hypertext we are going to start reading. If we focus on that first page, we could say that the title does not transmit any reference of time, but if we go deeper we can analyze the words which construct the name of the hypertext.


Rainbow= Rainbows are meteorology phenomenon’s which appear in the sky after raining and when the sun light has come out. They are just given and found when it occurs and not in other moments or ways, it is necessary water and the sun light to “create” one.

This word in the title offer us a view of what is going to talk about this hypertext, but also is the main word to express, as well in the title as in the whole hypertext.



The second scene or page we find in our hypertext, consist in a grating which takes some seconds in opening and comes out a text warning you about what you will find in the factory.




“Were you expecting something beautiful?” “Making rainbows is a dirty business”. These words express two different views of time. The first one, that ironic question, expresses a past time, what the visitors or readers were expecting in the moment they have seen the awesome title’s scene. Uses an ironic tone to warn the readers that if they were expecting something beautiful they will realize they were wrong.
The second sentence expresses a present time, a present moment, but a continuous moment with is not going to stop; we can understand it like if the business of making rainbows have been always dirty, is nowadays dirty and will probably go on being dirty.

The next scene which appears in our screen could be the main scene of the whole hypertext, the index, the site and page where all the links come out to other pages. We observe the draw of a black factory with many yellow windows. The black color of the factory put on the air the dark feeling of the employers and protesters about the dirty job they do into the factory.


“Each of the upper windows shows you a different aspect of what we do here at the Rainbow Factory” “Or poke your nose into the lower ones if you want to find out what REALLY goes on!” These sentences focus us in the present time, but divide the hypertext and the time of the action in two parts: the upper windows, what the management of the factory wants to show, and the lower windows, the reality of this business.

After this scene we can choose the window we prefer to see. It is not necessary to follow an order; the reader can jump from one window to another but always coming back to the main page or index.

I will go on analyzing following the order, from my point of view, can be the most easy to understand and follow. I will analyze an upper window follow of the lower window which gives a “behind the scene” view, one up and one low each time.

Windows

The first upper window shows a machine the factory uses to elaborate the rainbows. We can see all perfect and well elaborated rainbows how they pass in front of us, like a chain work in a factory, without stopping.




The presence of time that we can find in this scene focuses in the chain and continuous work of that machine, how time passes into the factory. Also we can detect a sign which give us the opportunity of stopping that chain and which take us back to the index immediately.

The first lower window, at first view, looks exactly the same that the upper one, just like a copy.


We, the readers, have to wait some seconds to realize that we were wrong thinking on that way. It is then when a “non-perfect” rainbow which is aspired by the machine appears on the scene and demonstrates us that rainbows are not always beautiful and perfect, that it is a hard and dirty job. As the upper window, this one also has the “stop” button which has the same function that in the up window.

The second upper window is dedicated to the colours, how they came. Giving explications and reasons about why those are the colours of rainbows, how it happened and where they come from.



The first reference of time that we find in this scene is the title. The verb is the main factor to represent in what time the scene will focus. Past time is what the verb represents, taking the reader into the past for explaining the start of every color. The rest of sentences are written in present because the title already has taken the reader to the past time so his mind is already thinking in the “present” of the past time.

The second lower window is an example of ideology. We find different sentences which express how the rainbows are created, why they appear, but that is not the only thing we find in this scene.


This is one of the examples of the different sentences we find into this window. “Rainbows are born of the sunlight and therefore holy” is the example we have here and as we can see it has been crossed by a big red word “HERESY” which means that someone or a group of people do not think in that way and disagree with those affirmations. The sentences in the window are written in present, because they express, as I said before, the way how rainbows are created and how its qualities.

The third upper window represents the process and way that the sunbeam follows till the rainbow comes out.



This plan bases on the time the sunbeam takes till the rainbow appears on the sky. This process takes a time and parts that people do not see; they just see the result. Here, in this plan, we have the explication of this process in a visual way which makes us to spend less time in understanding it and do it much better.

The third lower window, again, shows the “difficult” part of working with rainbows. It is not easy to do that job, and the weather does not help many times.



These three imagines shows how nothing in this factory is perfect, also not the process to create rainbows. “Oh, bugger” is an expression to show that something goes wrong, probably from the mouth of an employer or a boss. The scene is really fast, and does not take a long time; we can see really fast how the sunbeam arrives to the raindrop, and how this one exploits.


The fourth upper window explains the evolution in time of the rainbow’s form. But in the end of the scene after some seconds appears the word “propaganda” which expresses again the disagree of someone about all the words which talk about the evolution of the rainbow’s form.



The first paragraph uses the past tense, expressing how the rainbow form was in the past, and how decided to change it. The second paragraph and the third uses the present perfect and present simple, expressing a past not far away, more the actuality. The last paragraph also uses the present tense about what are the precautions they are following working with rainbows.


The fourth lower window is showing a parody and example of a new movie which will come soon. It is an ironic way of telling the negative aspects of this factory.










The first paragraph uses the past and future tense. Past to express what the factory has been working on, in a way of critic; and the future to express when the movie will be on society to see, to warn society about the close future we will suffer with the horrible thing they are doing with rainbows. The second and the third use also past tense and past perfect. Expressing the mistakes the factory and scientist have done experimenting with rainbows and the consequences which will come out to the society, consequences they did not expect to be found by the society. The rest of paragraphs use present and some future tenses to describe the horrible movie.


The fifth upper window is just a link which takes us to the factory’s library. There the author has written different titles of books about rainbows and that he has changed or created by himself.

The fifth lower window is the scene where we find protesters in the closed grating of the factory with some cartels protesting about the way the factory treats environment, and against the experiments they do with rainbows.



There is not a lot of text but the little bit we can find on it uses present tense. This scene shows us a problem and situation which have been in our life for so long. People who disagree and protest against it, and how the “protested” people try to get rid of them.

The sixth upper window is the research and development department of the rainbow factory where the management group and designers show the visitors their future ideas. It is also a joke about fashion, how the owners of the factory have decided that rainbows are old-fashioned and need a new look.




These different ideas and designs are the references on time of the future. What shows the future of the factory.

The sixth lower window demonstrates that the sixth upper window is not the real fact of the factory. It shows the different designs experiments of new rainbows which have failed. It shows the black present of the factory, and thanks to this we can think about how the future of the factory could be.





The seventh upper window is a parody if Microsoft Windows help pages. It has the same structured and words just the author has changed them into his work using words according to rainbows, and problems that the reader could have with his rainbows.



All the tenses used in the text are present, and reefers to the present problems the reader could experience.


The seventh lower window is a text which looks like the upper scene and which says that the factory or the employers who have to repair problems with the rainbows do not know how to do it and the reasons why it happens.

The eighth upper window is a poem which reefers that not always is everything perfect; all perfect things have also bad things. Reefers to the bad moments and times the factory and people who work on it pass.



It is truly saide that
when the skies darken,
the spirits of the
sharesholder of the
rainbow factory doe
lighten, for as the rain
falls soe may their profits
rise.

But they must have
sunne alsoe if their
inventsments is to paye dividends
and it is also often notices that those who
deal in rainbows would find
their fortunes as
changeable as the
weather

It is hard to read the poem at the first time, because the time it takes in the screen is short, and it goes on up very fast.

The eighth lower window is a strange scene which supposes to show a time of crisis in the factory. They have not sold as much as they wanted so the prices are falling and the shares too so they are panicking and frustrating and all they want is to sell. The present is the tense used and express and actual situation of financial crisis.




In the last upper window the tour finishes, which is a reference of time referring that the hypertext has finished and the virtual tour too. The factory lets us to choose between leaving the hypertext, which makes the visit not longer, or going to the Gift Shop.





This is my analysis of the Rainbow Factory from the point of view of time.



Introduction about the author Time Conclusion



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© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Patricia Lucha Serrano
paluse@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press