Novel Accents: Reading Realist Voices in The Bostonians

Abstract

Abstract:This article examines Henry James's 1886 novel, The Bostonians, as a case study of voice in late nineteenth-century realism, beginning with the famous decision by the narrator to introduce its protagonist by refusing to "reproduce" his Southern accent. I argue that the novel instead takes as its object of representation how characters hear each other. By demonstrating how characters labor both to distinguish and hierarchize the form and content of speech, James identifies that what the realist novel can and should give readers access to is how voices sound to specific listeners.