Patchwork Girl

Gender


Although Patchwork Girl feels that she is completely unlike anyone else she does have a strong sense of herself as a woman (or rather women). 		 
  When she first discovers that the cabin 'boy' Chancy is really a woman she is initially shocked and in no way drawn to disclose anything about herself.
She has tried to look like a respectable widow and only succeeded in having people form the impression that she was a man in disguise. Chancy was not deceived.  

 

 

 

 

 

From: Guises.

By the end of the trip there was such a hubbub of speculation about the mystery of my identity and my sex, that I had to take the utmost precautions to keep my door and window closed and check the wardrobe when I entered my cabin. I even kept my veil well tucked down into the neck of my dress. (9)

 

  


REVULSION

Now I understood her deep and mysterious affinity to the strange figure I undoubtedly still was; she was herself out of place, duplicitous. But I felt only revulsion toward her, as toward an unfinished thing, a kind of larva. I wanted clarity, a bright light. She struggled toward contradiction like a moist creature drawn to darkness and decay. Never mind that she was decided where I was tentative, bold where I was fearful, or that she climbed in the riggings with the grace of a natural animal, a handsome figure emblazoned on the sky. She told me that as a girl in fine dresses she had dreamed of adventure, and finally her father's bad investments had forced the children to fend for themselves, that she had run away to sea in the classic manner, and had managed to conceal her gender from her shipmates (and a legion of harborside whores) for the entirety of her seagoing career. I thanked her for her gesture, however misapplied, but I did not volunteer to return her confidences. (9)
 

 

Patchwork Girl is different from the females of her time - but she lives for more than a hundred years, so, like Orlando time eventually catches up with her. She survived through an era of women and wives as chattels.

From I am.

I move swiftly, with long loose strides; I was never comfortable in the drawing rooms or the pruned and cherished gardens of Mary's time and territory. I am happier where I have room to take long strides and I am enough alone that I can strip and walk unencumbered-I was made as strong as my unfortunate and famous brother, but less neurotic! Born full-grown, I have lived in this frame for 175 years. By another reckoning, I have lived many lives (Tituba's, Jane's, and the others') and am much older. (9)