Blog Post 6

Patchwork Girl is the story of a monster, styled like "Frankenstein." However, there are many differences. The author, Mary Shelley, falls in love with her monster through her travels and tribulations with it. She attempts to make a whole person with fragments (or organs) of other people. Mary Shelley incorporates many elements into her hypertext, including links, images, and many other literary elements. The structure was intensely difficult to follow, but in the end I realized that this was the point, that everything is "patched" together.

The story began with the title page, which basically introduces the story itself. Mary Shelley creates her own monster (essentially herself, as she attributes authorship to). The links on the title page lead to multiple different parts of this hypertext. The graveyard is a link to stories about organ donors and their biographies for Mary Shelley's monster. This is done by clicking on the organ, and it will bring you to these biographies. The inscription on the headstone tells of the organs that are present in Mary Shelley's monster (I found the headstone later on; there was no chronological order so it was difficult to put the hypertext together as one). The journal link is simply Mary Shelley's experiences with her monster throughout her travels and trials. The story link leads to Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" story; it has many quotes from the novel. I had much difficulty figuring out what the quilt link led to. However, I found out eventually that it is essentially the creation of Mary Shelley's monster, the different parts and organs.

This began the journey of the journal, where Mary Shelley dictates her experiences with her new monster.
Although almost impossible to read, this came after clicking on a random spot on the picture above. It is an explanation of a simple day in Mary Shelley's life. She explains walking down the street on a gray day, and proceeds to mention her monster: "As I write this, she is muttering to herself in the bathtub; the water is bitterly cold and must be frequently changed." Mary Shelley incorporates both her life and the monster's life - which seems as though they may be the same thing.

Mary Shelley describes how her monster is now hers, yet she has not "breathed fire" into her. The monster is waiting for her. I was confused at the non-chronological order here, because at first she is explaining a simply day in the life with her monster, then she is talking about how her monster fled her after conception. The monster has only a cloth left, devout of any clothing Mary Shelley had given to her before she fled.

This portion of the hypertext entails Mary Shelley's actual creation; the stitching of the monster. "Authoress, I amend, smiling," is one of the quotes from Patchwork Girl that really stood out to me. It seems as thought this is technically the theme of the story; that Mary Shelley is the creator and lover of this new monster. Mary Shelley also mentions the unity that will be very true later on in the adventures of this hypertext.

This is the beginning of the life of the monster. Stark naked, the monster stands in front of its creator, but it did not flee. Mary Shelley compares her monster to Autumn foliage; in the same way that the colors are beautiful, Mary Shelley's creation is beautiful to her.
Mary Shelley's monster departs. She tells of the feelings she is having at the moment: "repugnance, fear, and profound responsibility." She tells of how her neighbors stare at her, which seems like a metaphor for how Mary Shelley lives her life. This hypertext is becoming more and more of an actual narrative to me, because it is starting to patch itself together and I am beginning to realize the structure does not really have much of a point to it.
Again, this is just a recollection of how Mary Shelley is attempting to teach her monster. This time, she is attempting to teach it about life, and hold conversations with it. However, it is seemingly impossible, because of the imperfection of the creation. Mary Shelley is able to hold simple conversations with her monster, from topics of blackberry preserves to sorcery. Mary Shelley says "I despise of treating any one subject adequately, unless it be by crossing it enough times ... that our overlaid footprints begin to cover the whole..." Mary Shelley is talking about how she is unable to have social interaction, but was able to with her monster. There are a few themes I found at this point. Destruction, femininity, and sexuality. Mary Shelley seems to be in love with her creation, not repulsed by it as she is at first. She feels it must be destroyed for fear of society, but instead she considers it to be as important as a significant other. The next few screenshots I have are of the same nature; they are from the journal and document her interactions with the monster, the creation, and society.

Although I was using "links" all along, I very rarely used them. At this point in the journal, I decided to try a non-chronological route and just click the link that seemed most relative. However, there was only one choice for this.
These two segments are both about the creation of the monster, once again. They go into detail about the operations involved and the pain that Mary Shelley's monster endures to become an actual...thing. Her monster begins to help assemble herself, pulling off scraps of skin and giving them to Mary Shelley to attach. "I swabbed the blood from both our thighs." This again reminds me of the main theme that Mary Shelley's monster is herself.

This tells of the departure of Mary Shelley's creation - something I thought that I would come across much later. The hypertext goes on to explain the sort of post-partum depression that she felt after the departure of her monster; the feeling of being "bloated" after having such control over her monster. She goes to a dressmaker's shop outfitted in a mourning outfit, which she calls a "monster's disguise," or a farewell to a monstrous life left behind..."my own."

I was confused again by where the hypertext lead me. However, I found that this could be one of the donors for Mary Shelley's monsters. The biography of the donors seems pertinent to the story, seeing as there were many, many screenshots that told of the donors' lives and activities. This entry was about a spiritualist's view on the departure of a loved one, or in Mary Shelley's case, her monster. "Perhaps you are a skeptic, you believe we are alone here," seemingly reflects Mary Shelley's attitude about life, and her monster. The spiritualist advises to consider the monster a memory, a story in the bank of all possible stories.

When Mary Shelley talks about the donation of a tail from an armadilo, and how this happened. This hypertext to me seems so full and rich with text; it is multiple stories within itself. This link also represents the man who donated it, and his life story.

This is the headstone to Mary Shelley's departed monster. Each limb listed on the headstone inscription is a link to a different organ. Each time you click on one of them, Mary Shelley goes quite in depth into the human body, talking about plastic surgery and the nature of the human body. It goes on to have quotes from dismembered individuals, such as James the Dismembered, who said "Be comforted, little toe, because great and small have the same resurrection," yet then goes on to describe her brother. It especially emphasizes the similarity between difficulty creating the hypertext and the story itself. "I am like you in most ways. I have an introductory paragraph..." This simply shows how Mary SHelley made the hypertext a theme in her own electronic novel. The creation of the monster was essentially the creation of the hypertext.
This begins the phrenology. Each time you click on one of the links in the brain, it would take you to a different explanation as to how Mary Shelley created the hypertext, and how it is so similar to Mary Shelley's monster itself. "We live in the expectation of traditional narrative progression..." This quote from the hypertext further portrays how Mary Shelley is attributing her monster's creation to the creation of the hypertext.

There are many themes in this hypertext. The issues of sexuality, femininity, destruction, re-production, love, and others appear. She ensures emphasizing these themes by implementing them into the hypertext through links and images. This is certainly a narrative; however, it is not typical to what one would assume a narrative to be. It has many allusions, and dramatic irony that is incorporated into her writings about her monster, for the most part. The biggest theme I found, however, was that Mary Shelley's monster, is Mary Shelley herself. The most important thing I learned from this was that not all narratives have to be chronological; if you can patch them together to create the story it is all the more worthwhile.