Study Series: Shelley Jackson’s “my body— a Wunderkammer”

Shelley Jackson’s “my body: a Wunderkammer” is an intimate look into the spaces and corners of the narrator’s mind. The hyperlink visual map, from which you choose where to start reading, is allowing you to pick from body parts, which the narrator later compares to cabinet drawers. The narrative is as complex as the human experience, in one entry she writes “both bottomless and intricately connected to every other drawer, such that there can be no final unpacking” as if to say there is no ending, there is no order in which you read every entry and finish. There is also the matter of reading and guiding your way through links. The suggestion of cabinets is an interesting take, you open drawers and look inside them, but as she writes they are bottomless, so how do you choose when to change links when to stop and start reading? Links appear in the middle of paragraphs, do you click them and stop what you were reading? or do you finish the entry and then choose a link to navigate next? This simple interactive engagement is typical of hypertext; while it might read as a normal text the navigation calls for a more attentive and active audience.

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