Feminist Propaganda

What began as a project for school is now a part of my soul, is now an ingrained part of me. I have given myself over to this project in a way I did not expect to. I did not intend for this to become a part of me; for this to be me. It was intended an homage to feminism. It was intended to be an ode to empowerment. And it is, but not in the way I thought it would be. I thought it would be something more impersonal, more distant, something about the way men irritate women. And it is. But it is more than that. I have taken Shelley Jackson’s idea of writing about the body and written my own corpus. The branches are my limbs and each time you click on something it is another part of my story. This is just one part of who I am. But this corpus, it is like an addendum to my soul. I have extended my blood into it. I now circulate into it. It is kind of like a tail I suppose–in that way that Shelley Jackson had a tail in My Body and I too do not know how to control it. Now this will be out in public and I do not control what happens to it once it is online for anyone to read and access. It is mine but it is no longer mine; it is now everyone’s.

Feminist Propaganda is undoubtedly an acknowledgment of Shelley Jackson’s work, whose work itself is an acknowledgment of Mary Shelley’s work. We all share the same story: I am rewriting the story of many prior women. In my Twine are the monsters of Frankenstein and the graveyards of Patchwork Girl, and, most importantly, the limbs of My Body. The format of my story, in particular, was inspired by both of Shelley Jackson’s digital stories. In the same way that both My Body and Patchwork Girl have a very loosely defined exposition and middle with no true ending, I designed my Twine. Moreover, I borrowed the circularity that defines My Body as less of a story and more of a nonlinear prose-poem and applied it to my own Twine. The narrative structure is thereby limited to an introduction, general middle (with many different paths), and end. Instead of a game or story, I prefer the interpretation of Feminist Propaganda as a prose generator with a fixed beginning and end and a set number of permutations for the main body of text. There is no clear plot or linearity within the “middle” to indicate that there is progression. Everything in the middle exists on the same plane in that none of the elements are intended for plot progression and have no order.

I view this as an extension of my body and also Shelley Jackson’s My Body. I was more inspired by My Body than Patchwork Girl because I spent more time with it, more time getting to know the piece. It felt more familiar to me, more relatable. But then, I recognize too that My Body and Patchwork Girl are the same thing. I am a Patchwork Girl; my body is a patchwork girl.