The … in the Jungle: The Sounds—and the Sounding—of Silence in Late James

Abstract

Abstract:How does one write a story in which nothing happens? And how can one help an undergraduate reader make sense of it? Almost in a word, nothing, is a précis of "The Beast in the Jungle." Nothing connotes absence, ellipsis, reticence, silence; and these are the narrative strategies—and techniques—that Henry James employs in constructing this tale about a man ("the man") to whom nothing on earth was to have happened.