Dec 23, 2009

The Beast in the Jungle | Critical Overview

From the time of its first appearance in 1903 (in the short story collection The Better Sort ) ‘‘The Beast in the Jungle’’ has been acclaimed as one of James’s most accomplished short stories. Literary critics have found this story evocative and rich in imagery and insight. A reviewer writing in the Nation declared himself ‘‘amazed at the display of an extensive and impartial observation of life, at the mastery of some dominant human motives with their thousand qualifications and modifications and at the variety of capacity for brilliant representation.’’...