“My body - a wunderkammer” by Shelley Jackson is a unique narrative of the author’s relationship with her body and how each body part plays a role in her identity from adolescence to adulthood. At first glance, you are presented with a drawing of a woman’s naked body who is holding a writing utensil and a piece of paper. On the drawing, there are a variety of squares and rectangles highlighting various parts of her body and body features, with each box labeled with the accompanying body feature such as “tattoos”, “breasts”, “skin” and “leg hair”. The player is given no instructions on how they can interact with the piece, the only hint being the cursor changing into a hand, signaling that there is a link there.

Through investigation, the player can then click on any of the twenty-one highlighted body parts where they are then taken to a different page which describes a story pertaining to that body part. If the player keeps looking, they will notice that there are some body parts that are labeled but that aren’t highlighted, such as “butt” and “tail”. There are some words like “butt” and “tail” that will take you to a “hidden” story about that body part, while there are others that once clicked on simply take you to the same page you are currently on. It seems as though every part of the woman’s body is labeled or highlighted except for her facial features, but if the player is curious enough to click on the forehead, ears, eyes, eyebrows, and mouth they will discover the most hidden stories.

Jackson makes sure to describe the body parts that others sexualize of women, with intricate detail to desexualize her “feminine” features. Such descriptions include “my hips are narrow and hard like a boy’s” and “I left my leg hair unshaved all through high school. It was thick and sun-bleached…” (Jackson). By specifically including “unfeminine” details to typically “feminine” body parts, it can be seen that Jackson’s intentions are to steer the player’s mind away from the identity that society idealizes for a woman’s body. Jill Kestenberg, the author of Bounded by our Bodies: A Theoretical Essay on Female Identity and Gender Deconstruction, believes that a woman's body is looked at as the biggest part of her identity by society. "The representation of the female body in an always-patriarchal society has for the most part remained in the hands of male artists. In itself, the female form has usually been depicted as the idealized entity of male fantasy, a form to be gazed upon and desired" (Kestenberg). Jackson's representation of the female body is that of her own and she isn't scared to depict and describe herself as the nonideal image of a woman.