The Beast in the Jungle

Infobox Book |
name = The Beast in the Jungle


image_caption =
author = Henry James
country = United Kingdom, United States
language = English
series =
genre = Novella
publisher = Methuen, London
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York City
release_date = Methuen: February 26, 1903
Scribner's: February 26, 1903
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Published as part of the short story collection "The Better Sort"
pages =
isbn = NA
oclc = 24050323

"The Beast in the Jungle" is a 1903 novella by Henry James, first published as part of the collection, "The Better Sort". Almost universally considered one of James' finest short narratives, this story treats appropriately universal themes: loneliness, fate, love and death. The parable of John Marcher and his peculiar destiny has spoken to many readers who have speculated on the worth and meaning of human life.

Plot summary

John Marcher, the protagonist, is reacquainted with May Bartram, a woman he knew ten years earlier, who remembers his odd secret: Marcher is seized with the belief that his life is to be defined by some catastrophic or spectacular event, lying in wait for him like a "beast in the jungle." May decides to buy a house in London with the money she got from her Great-Aunt who passed away, and to spend her days with Marcher curiously awaiting what fate has in store for him. Marcher is a hopeless egoist, who believes that he is precluded from marrying so that he does not subject his wife to his "spectacular fate".

He takes May to the theatre and invites her to an occasional dinner, while not allowing her to really get close to him. As he sits idly by and allows the best years of his life to pass, he takes May down as well, until the denouement where he learns that the great misfortune of his life was to throw it away, and to ignore the love of a good woman, based upon his preposterous sense of foreboding.

Major themes

Marcher may appear so eccentric and unrealistic in his obsession that his fate could seem irrelevant and unconvincing. However, many critics and ordinary readers have found that his tragedy only dramatizes, with heightened effect, a common longing for an exhaustive experience that will redeem an otherwise humdrum existence, although most individuals will not endure anything like Marcher's final revelation at May's graveside.

The story has been read as a confession or parable about James' own life. He never married and possibly never experienced a consummated sexual relationship. Although he did enjoy a thorough experience of aesthetic creativity, it is possible that he still regretted what he called the "essential loneliness" of his life. This biographical relevance adds another level of meaning to "The Beast in the Jungle."

Critical evaluation

James placed "The Beast in the Jungle" at the head of volume 17 of the "New York Edition" (1907–1909) of his fiction, along with another insightful examination of life and death, "The Altar of the Dead." Critics have almost unanimously agreed with the author's own high opinion of the tale, with some going so far as to put the story among the best short narratives in any literature. For instance, "The Beast in the Jungle" earned a place in the second edition of Mortimer Adler's "Great Books of the Western World".

Critics have appreciated James' flash of insight in conceiving "the" man to whom nothing on earth was to have happened." They have also praised the tale's technique. Beginning in a neutral and rather diffident manner, the story builds to a climax of great power. Many critics have singled out the final paragraph for its intensity and rhetorical impact. In particular, the final sentence ends the tale with a succession of short but telling phrases.

Trivia

*"The Beast in the Jungle" is mentioned in the movie "The Screaming Skull" as a book read by the female protagonist.

*This story is the subject of a discussion between a few characters at the beginning of the David Lodge novel "Author, Author", a fictional re-imagining of the life of Henry James.

References

* "Tales of Henry James: The Texts of the Tales, the Author on His Craft, Criticism" edited by Christof Wegelin and Henry Wonham (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003) ISBN 0-393-97710-2
* "The Tales of Henry James" by Edward Wagenknecht (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1984) ISBN 0-8044-2957-X

External links

* [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1093 The "New York Edition" text of "The Beast in the Jungle" (1909)]
* [http://www.henryjames.org.uk/prefaces/text17_inframe.htm Author's preface to the "New York Edition" text of "The Beast in the Jungle" (1909)]
* [http://www.loa.org/volume.jsp?RequestID=64&section=notes Note on the texts of "The Beast in the Jungle"] at the Library of America web site
* [http://www.archive.org/details/thebettersort00jamerich James, H. "The Better Sort", Methuen & Co.: London, 1903] , a digitized copy from the Internet Archive.