In case you wondered …

… The Place of Punctuation in Literary Art | The Russell Kirk Center. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Mitchell’s interpretation of “The Beast in the Jungle” shows the extent to which James made punctuation a vital element in his art. The story’s protagonist, John Marcher, obsessively anticipates the arrival of some momentous yet unknown event in his life, all while ignoring the devoted May Welland, who has patiently awaited Marcher’s acknowledgement of her love. But it is to no avail: Marcher’s tragic fate is sealed. The story’s epiphanic conclusion, as Mitchell reads it, implies “a stymied sense of life blocked by punctuation, with dashes prominent but compounded as well by semicolons, parentheses, periods: all representing the psychological resistances [Marcher] has suffered, from which he had never been able to break free into sinuously self-possessed, unremitting, and integrated prose.” This penetrating explication is one of the best in the book.