TEMPORAL ANALYSIS

GENERAL ANALYSIS

The time in this hypertext isn’t external at all, because in this case the author is talking about her most of the time and that means that is talking in a subjective (internal) time rather than in an objective time. In a general view I can say that the text combines past tenses and present tenses. Nevertheless, we must not forget that the author talks in the past much more times than in the present.

When she uses present tense she is speaking of things that usually or now are happening to her, for example when she writes about her toenails she say: ‘I have a wary, mistrustful relationship to my toenails.’ And when she explains what she can do with her different parts as in the case of the nose: ‘Things I can do with my nose: I can wrinkle it in distaste. I can wiggle my nostrils rhythmically. I can 'make a long nose.' I can thrust it into small, tight places. I can nuzzle things softly. I can blow streams of bubbles underwater. I can make a loud reproachful sound, like a krummhorn.’ She also uses present tense when she expresses a feeling like when she speaks about her period: ‘When I have my period my body aches from my ribs to my knees. I feel like I am melting from the center outward, like a candle. Or I'm dissolving into silt and flowing toward the ocean on my own slow river.’ In the case of the feelings the time is simultaneous.

Besides that, in the case of past tenses, as I said before, they are dominant, because she is always, remembering things about her body. She explains a lot of experiences lived when she was younger. She explains things not only when she was five but also when she was older as at the age of sixteen. For instance, when she talks about her toes, ‘At five I wanted to learn to dance on my toes. I supposed that ballerinas had incredibly strong toes, because no matter how I strained my toes couldn't hold my weight without buckling. What I could do, balancing myself against a chair while I arranged myself en pointes, was fold my toes under and hobble along on the knuckles.’ She uses a big range of past tenses (past simple, past continuous, present perfect, the passive, conditional) as well as linguistic elements (when, at five, at sixteen, one summer, while, etc).

It must be said that the texts doesn’t follow any type of structure, it is non-linear because, of course, it is a hypertext, as well as because the novel hasn’t one story it has many little stories in order to give us a vision of her body and our own body.

TITLE.TEMPORAL ANALYSIS

My Body, a Wunderkammer. When I first read the title I didn’t think it makes any reference to time but, then, I read the word Wunderkammer again and I realize that I didn’t understand it. So with the help of my professor I look for it on the internet and I feel it has that temporal reference.

Wunderkammer is a German word that is used in the past for the collections of curios and odd or unusual things that scientifics and researchers discover in their expeditions to other countries. When they came back to their country they keep those objects on a special place that they called wunderkammer that in English means Cabinet of curiosities.

When I understand the meaning of this word I find out that it has a reference in the past since these discoveries were dated in Renaissance Europe (14th–17th centuries). Thus, in my opinion the author wants to link this word with the body. In other words, the word body according to Shelley Jackson means Wunderkammer because it is a box of curiosities, of experiences, of memories. In conclusion it is a thing that is related with the past.

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Academic year 2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Gema Martí López
gemarlo@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press
Página creada: 03/12/08 actualizada: 08/12/08