Stitches: A Novel, and. “If it didn’t hurt, I probably wouldn’t do it”: A Freudian Exploration of Creative Practice in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Cathleen Davies’ Stitches

Davies, Cathleen (2026) Stitches: A Novel, and. “If it didn’t hurt, I probably wouldn’t do it”: A Freudian Exploration of Creative Practice in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Cathleen Davies’ Stitches. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

Stitches is a novel about body modification and identity, in which two characters undergo an extreme body swap through cosmetic surgeries, raising questions on identity, gender, consent, modification and mutilation. In this multi-voiced absurdist horror novel, we see several first-person perspectives contend with their own embodied experiences of existence within a patriarchal world considered via a combination of Freudian psychoanalytic thought and phenomenology.

In the critical analysis to this project, I consider Practice as Research through a Freudian lens, applying questions on the Practice of Gothic Creative Writing through iteration, autobiography and intertextuality, and Freudian ideas of the death drive and the Uncanny. In doing so, I present a critical analysis of Stitches and its creation, as well as offering a reading of the creative process involved in the making of Shelley’s Frankenstein, and finally I consider a third-person PaR literary analysis of my characters’ psychoanalytic motivations in the creation of their body art. Through this multi-layered approach I demonstrate the uncanny interconnections between authorial inspiration, self, and character.

Together, the two pieces of Creative and Critical writing demonstrate the reliance of Research on Practice and Practice on Research as they interlink to become this Creative-Critical PhD thesis.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	19 May 2026 08:07
Last Modified:	19 May 2026 08:07
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/103080
DOI:

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