Pain as a Feminist Issue in Harriet Prescott Spofford’s “The Magnetic Patient” and Articles Written for Harper’s Bazar

This paper intends to expand the reach of Harriet Prescott Spofford criticism with an analysis of “The Magnetic Patient” (1869), one of numerous short stories published in Harper’s Bazar that have yet to receive any critical attention. Through close analysis of both the short story and three polemic articles Spofford wrote for Harper’s Bazar in the late 1800s, I foreground an aspect of her work that has previously been viewed as a secondary or implicit concern: physical pain. Employing theoretical frameworks offered by Elaine Scarry and Michael McIntyre, I argue that Spofford is interested in physical pain as a direct, visceral experience, one that is both separate from and connected to other forms of patriarchal power.