In the work ‘my body — A Wunderkammer‘ by Jackson, hyperlinks were used as a way to explore the author’s past and interpretations of herself. Throughout the piece you are invited to click on various drawn body parts which then redirect you to another page with an anecdote about that particular part. By reading the passages written by the author, we are able to learn about the insecurities faced by the author, either physical or mental. As the author of ‘Electronic Literature‘ explains, Jackson interpreted the body as “a kind of inscription surface for personal history and memory.”
Among these different pieces within the hypertext story we can see patterns appear that reveal deep-set insecurities. For example, in the ‘hips‘ and ‘shoulders‘ section, she constantly compares different parts of her to male ones. She remarks in ‘shoulders’ that she appeared to have male genitalia but was potentially glad she did not. At the same time, in the hips section she remarked she had musculature similar to men idolized by the Greeks. Both of these remarks seem portray to the idea that she was uncomfortable with parts of her body and how some aspects of her did not hold up to her image of a proper female body.
These remarks went further than just physical, they also bled into psychological uncertainties as well. In one section called ‘tail‘ the author claims she has a tail that likes to move on its own and even assault her. In one recollection, she talks about her friend using her tail for sexual pleasure. The unlikelihood of this part seems to instead point at her insecurity of her body and how it is not perfectly “female” to her. She even describes trying to remove it by tying it to a door handle without success. From this we can assume the tail is a manifestation of her mind of how her body appears partially masculine.
This work is an intense view into the author’s mind and cleverly uses hyperlinks to portray a story of both body and mind. Similar styles that use hyperlinks can be seen in other hypertext stories from class including the like of ‘Uncle Roger‘ that contains several stories hidden away until the user accesses them through a hyperlink. Jackson clearly showed the versatility of hypertext stories and how the author can use it to explore many different aspects of life.