Eliza and Her Monsters

“I am LadyConstellation.

I am also Eliza Mirk.

This is the paradox that can never be solved.”

Eliza introduces herself as two people, essentially opposed to one another. LadyConstellation and Eliza Mirk are both technically her, but she doesn’t see the personalities as being compatible with one another. The working out of the “paradox” will occupy much of the plot and is key to the novel’s exploration of Self-Invention and Authenticity in the Digital World.

“That computer is my rabbit hole; the internet is my wonderland.

I am only allowed to fall into it when it doesn’t matter if I get lost.”

By alluding to the Alice in Wonderland novels, Eliza places herself in the tradition of Lewis Carroll’s Alice. She demonstrates a higher degree of self-awareness than Alice ever did, though, because Eliza knows about her own tendencies to “get lost” and takes steps to manage them.

“But I don’t want to be friends with people who have already decided I’m too weird to live. Maybe if they knew who I am and what I’ve made, maybe then they wouldn’t think I was so weird. Maybe then the weird would just be eccentric. But the only person I can be in this school is Eliza Mirk, and Eliza Mirk is barely a footnote in anyone’s life. Including mine.”

Eliza’s first-person voice conveys her struggle with self-worth. She doesn’t believe that she’s worthy of anyone’s time and refers to herself as a “footnote” in the lives of others. Her self-described marginality belies her status as the main character in the novel and in her own life and suggests the extent to which she finds online spaces to be a safer site for enacting her identity.