THE BEAST IN THE JUNGLE
by Henry James, 1903

In "The Art of Fiction" Henry James advised the aspiring writer to be one "upon whom nothing is lost." Perhaps no writer has better lived up to this credo than Henry James himself. His stories evince this determination to miss nothing that is relevant to our understanding of human nature. Frequently the fun of a James story derives from the distance between what characters miss about themselves and what the perceptive reader so clearly sees. No better example exists than his great story "The Beast in the Jungle."

Especially upon first reading, James's stories often appear to be more difficult than they really are. The difficulty arises from two technical factors: his sentence style and his preferred point of view. "The Beast in the Jungle" (in The Better Sort, 1903) is a good example. The sentence structure is involved, convoluted, labyrinthine. The narrative voice is also typical of James: third person limited to an unreliable point of view, in this case the protagonist's, John Marcher's. James's technical choices are organic: that is, they grow out of and contribute to theme and characterization. The labyrinthine sentence structure, for instance, is very near what a few years later would be called "stream of consciousness." John Marcher is an intensely introspective, self-involved, searching yet passive character, and the sentence style—dominated by the passive voice—perfectly mirrors his personality. Despite Marcher's searching introspection, however, he constantly misses the point about himself and his condition. The narrative point of view, limited to him, must be correspondingly unreliable. Hence the reader is made an active participant in trying to figure out Marcher. If the reader finds the answer long before Marcher, that too is appropriate.

It is the terrible irony of the story—James would call it an "operative irony"—that in one sense Marcher does not miss the point at all; he is in fact correct in his essential view of himself, but it is a view that is ultimately destructive. James frequently took as his theme the "destructiveness of an idea." Marcher's idea is a common one (occurring to many children, probably, but most outgrow it): that he is reserved for something unique, a terrible thing, perhaps, but something for himself alone. The problem is that Marcher is so captivated by this childish notion that other potentialities of his life are eliminated or reduced to anemic supporting roles. Chief among the "supporting cast" is May Bartram. It is obvious to all but John, certainly obvious to May, that she should have been his leading lady, but John is too intent on waiting for "the beast." She may wait with him at her peril if she chooses but with the understanding that she can never be first in his life. And so appears the operative irony. And so appears the beast. Only John Marcher does not yet realize it.

The first scene of the story is a good example of John's problem. In touring a lovely old English home Marcher is vaguely aware that he has met another party in the tour once before—where and when, he is not certain. Appropriately, the other party (May Bartram) does remember. They had met in Naples nearly 10 years before when they were both in their twenties. What could be more romantic—two young people meeting on a holiday in Naples. The scene becomes vivid to John, however, only when May reminds him that he had told her the secret of his life—the beast. Already by the time of his young manhood, then, Marcher was obsessed to the point of ignoring what to anyone else might seem reason enough to consider one's life extraordinary: the potential for love.

Indeed, "The Beast in the Jungle" can easily be read as a love story—but an unhappy one. May, one senses, would have been quite happy to have seen their relationship assume a more romantic aspect back in Naples. She would, no doubt, be happy to entertain such a notion a decade later at the start of the story. But again John must wait for his beast. May waits with him—for the beast, he thinks, but really for him to come to his senses—as the years pass.

By the time of the climactic fourth section of this six-section story, it is clear that Marcher's dominating idea is destructive not merely in the abstract. Both have aged; May in fact had noticeably (even to dull John) aged in the 10 years since Naples. Now May not only is older but is ill, perhaps near death. Still there is time—time for love. John as always is concerned with the beast. Was he wrong all along? Here at the end of his life has he missed the extraordinary thing that was to happen, he asks. No, May replies, gliding over to him, presenting herself to him. The extraordinary thing is still possible. She of course means love. But what is the thing, he demands. Finally realizing that he will never see, May virtually collapses. "What then has happened?" John pleads to know. May replies, "What was to."

What May refers to is of course the beast. It savages John in the April scene, but then it had been savaging him—stealing his life away, his receptivity to love—all along, from the first moment he conceived his destructive idea. John himself finally realizes it in the story's last scene, before May's grave, where he witnesses a mourner whose face is scarred by grief. He suddenly realizes that he himself has never been so moved by anything, that his unique destiny is to be the one man to whom nothing ever happens. Recoiling from the beast, which rises like a phantom before him, Marcher throws himself on May's grave—one more turn of the Jamesian screw. What will he do tomorrow if the opportunity for love presents itself? Abjure it once more no doubt in his dedication to his new beast: the memory of May Bartram.

"One's in the hand's of one's law," John says earlier in the story. His fate bears out the terrible truth of that remark.

—Dennis Vannatta