K-A's Week Four: More Hypertext
I decided to look at My Body a Wunderkammer by Shelley Jackson. I like that she isn't just talking about her body. She brings up family members and specifically old people as a comparison to her own when she's talking about her elbows and knees. She brings up others her age when she's talking about her arms and hands. Our opinions of things don't exist in a vacuum; we form them by comparing them to other things. These anecdotes Jackson puts into her work between the descriptions of her body and thoughts make the reading more engaging. I think I would have been bored just reading about how she looks. Thinking about them in terms of societal implications is much more interesting and made me want to click every link. It's still about her, but also how the things around her shaped her own opinions of herself.
I like how you said that our opinions don't exist in a vacuum and that we get them from comparing. Shelley Jackson does this a ton in her digital piece by linking her stories to other relevant ones, which totally makes sense. When you're telling a story to someone, oftentimes other stories pop up between the two of you in a conversation and then suddenly you're derailed on another topic together. I felt like I was experiencing that through my computer when I went through her piece.
ReplyDeleteI also found it interesting how she didn't just talk about her body, but also other peoples bodies, including some older than her. I think I would have to agree with you that this piece would have been a little less intriguing without the inclusion of others.
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