Patchwork Girl: The Quilt

The question of the "Mosaic" technique of creation for PATCHWORK GIRL applies to both the character of the "creature" (for lack of a better term) and to the work hypertext work itself. They are both a resurrection and conglomeration of other stories. The hypertext is assembled from Mary Shelley's novel and L. Frank Baum's novel and literary criticism by Helene Cixous, Derrida and others, along with some interesting stitching by Jackson herself. It seems to me that the framework, the stitching together, which is all Jackson is enough to make this her work, but I can also see where someone might not be so accepting. True, the story is a multiplicity, but I don't think that makes it a demon.

With the character of the Patchwork Girl, you have the fact that she is constructed from the pieces of others. How can she even have an "I" persona, an ego or "ich," when her entire being is cobbled together from the remains of others. Without an "I" to call your own, how can you have dignity. (I just had a Ayn Rand flashback...) The "dignity" aspects of the Patchwork Girl mentioned in the hypertext are in reference to the character from Baum's novel. I love the line, "...I said to myself that the quilt would do nicely for the girl, for when she was brought to life she would not be proud nor haughty, as the Glass Cat is, for such a dreadful mixture of colors would discourage her from trying to be dignified." I can't imagine why you wouldn't want someone to be dignified, unless it was for religious reasons. "Pride goeth before the fall," they say...