"You Must Allow Me to Measure Myself": Problems of Disability in Henry James's The Outcry

Abstract

Abstract:The field of disability studies interrogates the many ways narrative and rhetorical devices depend upon disability to construct conceptions about normalcy. While the fields of disability and James studies have begun to intersect in recent years, the present state of discourse is still insufficient. Henry James's often overlooked late novel The Outcry provides a striking confluence of personal biography and industrial history to illuminate conditions and representations of disability. Views about ableness, ailment, and personal choice are fueled by social factors and the novel demonstrates how these expectations can prove more disabling than disability itself.