Abstract
This thesis explores the ways in which Henry James’s short stories, “The Figure in the Carpet,” and “The Beast in the Jungle,” reiterate his artistic theory as he expresses it in “The Art of Fiction.” In the critical essay, James guides novelists to resist the adherence to narrative formula, positing that this limits their abilities to relay the complexities of experience. By creating fictional characters who exist according to their expectations of an inherent order in art, and therefore life, James similarly addresses this topic in his short stories. In both the essay and the stories, James shows that the alternative to the subscription to formula is a disruption of subjectivity that allows for the recognition of the significance of lived experience.