“Sounds of Silence in The Wings of the Dove and Blackmail.”

A cross-reading of Henry James's The Wings of the Dove and A. Hitchcock's Blackmail, this essay emphasizes a number of underlying thematic affinities and striking similarities in narrative outlook and arrangement between the two texts, foregrounding the ways in which both authors were providing similar responses to the cultural predicaments and aesthetic challenges of their respective times and chosen media.