The Beast in the Jungle

The coming shift in Marcher and May’s relationship is reflected in the atmospheric backdrop of Chapter 4: the “long fresh light of waning April days which affects us often with a sadness sharper than the greyest hours of autumn” (47). In this ambivalent environment that evokes both spring and fall, May appears to Marcher as a wax figure, a “sphinx,” and an “artificial lily,” images that gesture toward the mourning of the dead as well as to a sterile, fixed purity. They foreshadow the death that will occur in the following chapter, while also emphasizing anew the essential estrangement at the core of May and Marcher’s relationship, intimate as it is. The accumulation of these images heightens Marcher’s premonition that his fate is sealed, yet still undefined. May, with her enigmatic wisdom, suggests she might understand Marcher’s fate, hinting at a grim outcome. She hesitates to share her knowledge, attempting to shield him from its associated despair. This effort highlights her deep devotion and willingness to bear the burden of that knowledge alone. However, Marcher accuses May of deserting him, revealing his narcissism. When May asks Marcher if they have ever truly connected, she offers him a chance to recognize what is right in front of him. His inability to acknowledge May’s love, rooted in The Psychological Impact of Anticipation, creates a rift between them; a rift that deepens when he accuses her of abandonment. In a final attempt to bridge this chasm, May offers him the last opportunity for redemption. In this crucial moment, Marcher, despite realizing May always had more to offer him, fails to see the true nature of his fate. She challenges him, “Don’t you know—now?”—yet Marcher remains clueless about her meaning (57). His long habituation to waiting means that he can no longer grasp a “now.”

Marcher’s acknowledgment of May’s impending death and her subsequent passing force him to navigate life without her companionship and thrust Marcher into a deeper existential crisis. Until this juncture, Marcher had been living under the illusion that his life was meant for something uniquely grand, which paradoxically led him to overlook the richness of his relationship with May. May’s assertion that the long-awaited event has occurred without Marcher’s awareness plunges him into confusion and despair. Thus, this scene exemplifies the theme of The Tragic Irony of Unrealized Potential, in which Marcher’s expectation of a specific fate prevents him from experiencing what has actually happened in the meantime. May’s assertion to Marcher that the event has indeed occurred without his recognition reinforces the irony, compounding Marcher’s sense of missed opportunities.

In his initial visits to May’s grave, Marcher seeks understanding but discovers only his own isolation. In keeping with the theme of how Existential Dread Shapes Personal Identity, Marcher is unable to avail himself of the sorts of religious or supernatural consolations sought beside a loved one’s grave. The two named locations of Marcher’s journey, India and Egypt, function as geographical substitutions for himself and May. India is the implicit reference point of Marcher’s self-construction; he has previously associated his Beast with a tiger, and tigers are most readily hunted in the jungles of the Indian subcontinent. Egypt is the home of the world’s most famous sphinx, the Great Sphinx of Giza, thus underlining the connection to May. Yet Marcher’s attempts to seek meaning in far-flung locations end in the realization that the world is “vulgar and vain” (73)—and, along those same lines, the realization that he himself shares some of these qualities. This self-awareness marks the beginning of his enlightenment, though it comes laced with bitter regret. Marcher realizes that the distinctiveness he once felt, the anticipation of a unique fate, was a delusion. The moment of realization for Marcher comes through an encounter with a grieving man at the cemetery. This encounter acts as a mirror, reflecting what Marcher has missed in life: the depth of feeling that comes with true love and loss. The man’s grief contrasts with Marcher’s numb existence, triggering a cascade of realizations about his own life’s emptiness and the nature of the Beast he had been waiting for. Marcher’s Beast is not an external event that was to mark him with distinction but the internal revelation of his life’s vacuity. His failure to love May Bartram, to recognize the opportunity for a deep and meaningful connection, constitutes his tragic fate. The Beast is his realization of this failure, a fate worse than any external catastrophe he had imagined. It’s the acknowledgment of a life not lived, of potential love and happiness forever lost.