Shelley Jackson- My Body

Hypertext is not new to digital literature. Then again, Shelley Jackson's My Body appears to have been written around 1997, and it's probably safe to assume that the hypertext digital literary technique was a newer phenomenon twelve years ago. Regardless, the manner in which Jackson has been able to integrate the novel's content (ie. her character's body) with the hypertext, complicates any attempt at a single linear reading of the work. Despite the fact that the technology is not incredibly advanced, the content of the literature itself is (which is admittedly a refreshing reversal from much of the digital literature I have encountered). The words and phrases that Jackson decides to turn into hypertext and the section of the work those words and phrases are linked to, seem highly crafted and compellingly enigmatic. For instance, in the vagina section, "what it felt like to have a penis" is linked to 'shoulders' and “Kleenex” is linked to 'nose' while “scented Kleenex” is linked to 'armpits'. The hypertext is a means to force the reader to make connections between the content of the hypertext to the section it is linked to. When I saw that the phrase "what it felt like to have a penis" was linked to “shoulders” I thought it made sense because I related "penis" and "shoulders" together as two body parts that bring to mind strength and msculinity. Shoulders however, are not necessarily always associated with one sex or the other, but when penis appeared in the hypertext linking it to the shoulders section I did not picture women’s shoulders, but broad, strong masculine ones. When I arrive at the shoulder section from a different hyperlink origin such as the body map page or from “monsters” which appears in the 'arms' section, my expectation of the writing in that section changes. Furthermore, the manner in which the language of the hypertext is related to the story that it is being linked to begs the question of which was written first, the hypertext phrase or the related story? The project certainly feels crafted enough to assume that the author had the premeditated intentions to carefully link these stories together, as opposed a technique like free association; yet, what I find adds even more to the complexity of the work is that it feels as though either techniques (or both simulataneaously) are at play here.

The use of hypertext in this piece also acts as a means to heighten and parallel the sense of being lost in one’s own body. The female character, a kind of tom boy, is constantly bewildered and disoriented by her own body. At first the confusion feels like something she experienced in her past, like her understandable juvenile confusion over how babies can come from between her legs. But in sections like ‘arms’ the speaker shares the adult experience of not being able to explain the shape of her body to other women. During my reading of the project, this is the first moment in which she hints that her childhood bewilderment is not something she has actually grown out of. The tone of many of the other sections, especially “vagina” also hints that the body is still mysterious, intriguing and mystifying to the speaker, even in adulthood.

Finally, the links allow the reader to feel the speaker’s sense of confusion in her digital/literary body by clicking on links that have the ability to endlessly take you to additional sections or get you stuck in a loop of the same few. From what I can see, the ‘phantom limb’ section is the only section that you cannot reach from the main body map page and the reader quickly discovers that “roller-skate” is the key to getting to the phantom limb. The story of the phantom limb then becomes a true phantom limb of the body that is Jackson’s literary work. As simple as the technology seems to us now, the hypertext technique here achieves what the page could not achieve as effectively. It provides a perfect medium for Jackson’s playful depiction of the physical body paralleling and existing simultaneously with the written body.