Patchwork Girl

 

The patchwork girl is tall and robust. Like Frankenstein's monster she is able to run naked over hills and mountains.  
  Despite being built from parts of many women she does not behave as women would have done in the era and social sphere within which she first exists, Mary Shelley's world.
There is much speculation about her real identity particularly her sexual identity.  
   

From: I am.

I am tall, and broad-shouldered enough that many take me for a man; others think me a transsexual (another feat of cut and stitch) and examine my jaw and hands for outsized bones, my throat for the tell-tale Adam's Apple. My black hair falls down my back but does not make me girlish. Women and men alike mistake my gender and both are drawn to me. (9)

 
   
  She seems to transcend gender. Her physical and emotional strengths are quite contrary to the feminine image of the day. Mary did not endow her with the socialisation to make her timid and dependent, simpering and submissive.
   

 

 
 

From: Guises

With these hypotheses came a variety of approaches or avoidances, but one way or another nearly everyone on board worked out their particular theory to the conclusion that I wanted them sexually, and with my great strength would have them if they did not take the utmost precautions. Such is the fascination of disguise. (9)