"My Cleverness, I Assure You, Has Grown Infernal": Playing Stupid with Henry James
This article reads Henry James’s bias against his native America ironically. I offer a two-fold reading of the staging and performance of stupidity: it is both a strategy of resistance and a rhetoric of disavowal of responsibility. I contend that Henry James offers Milly Theale, the American rotagon...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | Portuguese |
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Universidade Estadual de Campinas
2018-06-01
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| Series: | Remate de Males |
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| Online Access: | https://periodicos.sbu.unicamp.br/ojs/index.php/remate/article/view/8650290 |
| Summary: | This article reads Henry James’s bias against his native America ironically. I offer a two-fold reading of the staging and performance of stupidity: it is both a strategy of resistance and a rhetoric of disavowal of responsibility. I contend that Henry James offers Milly Theale, the American rotagonist of “The Wings of the Dove”, the possibility of playing up to European assumptions about the New World through a performance of stupidity. I also argue that feigning ignorance is also renouncing responsibility, as exemplified in Merton Densher’s conduct. James abstains from conclusions, allowing stupidity to rule in the end. |
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| ISSN: | 2316-5758 |