Interrogating the Legibility of Queer Female Subjectivity: Rethinking May Bartram's "Bracketed" Character in "The Beast in the Jungle"

Abstract

This essays seeks to investigate both the historical and critical elision of May Bartram's queer subjectivity in Henry James's "The Beast in the Jungle." Though many queer scholars have taken up Eve K. Sedgwick's persuasive reading of John Marcher's "vexed sexual subject status" few have studied the textual clues that indicate May Bartram's potentially "homosexual secret." This essay works to offer another queer reading that advocates for revealing forms of intimacy and camaraderie between queer men and women.