Henry James: "The Beast in the Jungle"

Abstract

HE BEAST IN THE JUNGLE" is probably the most celebrated of all of Henry James's parables of the "lost life" or the wasted life; a theme which was to be developed by the American naturalists and realists who followed him. But the Jamesian approach and tone were somewhat different; they were in this nouvelle another example of the idiosyncratic Jamesian method-the altogether unique Jamesian vision of life. John Marcher and May Bartram have met again at "Weatherend." Amid the elegant decor of the old English house-the "old wainscots, old tapestry, old gold, old colour"-these two Jamesian gossips share their earlier memories of each other, in a somewhat ornate prose. What draws Marcher to May (the names are symbolical) is that she makes him feel, with all her delicate scruples, omissions, refinements of consciousness, the late revival of his own life, the return of his lifelong quest, his "secret" destiny. "He had thought of himself so long as abominably alone, and lo he wasn't alone a bit." She is a perfect intellectual and spiritual companion, in the typical Jamesian sexless diffusion of passion through conversation. And their conversation deals exclusively with his "problem," his mysterious fate, his vague but profound and consuming fear. "It's only a question of the apprehension that haunts methat I live with day by day," says his hero, and she in turn is all concern, sympathy and identification. "Is it a sense of coming violence?" May Bartram asks, quite in the mood of James's May Server, in The Sacred Fount. "It will only depend on yourself," he answers-"If you'll watch with me." And the scene of their true "engagement" is in the bond, as it were, of a mutual, a double and shared voyeurism, which revolves upon this odd hero's anxiety.