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The Beast in the Jungle‖ International Journal of Research ISSN NO:2236-6124 Epistemology of ―The Beast in the Jungle‖ By KANIGANTI SRINIVAS, VEMUGANTI NIRMALADEVI. The versatile reading of Henry James‘s novella ―The Beast in the Jungle‖ has surfaced over the decades, few have concentrated on the function of memory and consciousness in unraveling the secrets of this complex narrative. The research of this topic further, it is significant to shed light on the major portions of the story that James tells us. The novella opens in London, as the protagonist, John Marcher, reunites with May Bartram, a women he had known a decade earlier and to whom he had confided an unusual secret. At that time, Marcher revealed to Bartram his unshakeable conviction that his life would be defined by an extraordinary event, one that could be either positive or negative. For this reason, He has avoided marriage. Nevertheless, in the wake of their reunion, Marcher agrees to accept friendship and generosity from May Bartram, who invites him to watch together with her for his cryptic fate. This odd relationship unfolds over the book‘s first three sections, and it is not until the climactic fourth section that we grasp the long term aftermath of the arrangement. Despite their proximity and their involvement in the common activity of watching and waiting, there is nothing about the relationship that reflects a genuine feeling of communion. Throughout the novella, James deftly renders the gaps and slips that characterize their conversations, calling to mind Lacan‘s play of the signifiers as well as his concept of love as deceit as an act of dissimulation. Indeed, William James‘s formula regarding ―habits,‖ ―memory,‖ and ―consciousness‖ casts a long shadow over the narrative, a shadow that puts one in mind of the Lacanian thing, the embodied language. As the reader gradually comes to understand, Marcher‘s failure to apprehend May Bartram‘s love is related not only to his misconception of memory as the accurate reflection of the past but, as a corollary to this, the stilted body language and verbal slips that inform their interactions. Volume VIII, Issue XI, November/2019 Page No:286 International Journal of Research ISSN NO:2236-6124 I will explore different concepts of memory, consciousness, and love as endless talking, drawing upon criticism by Eve Sedgwick and Leo Bersani. The goal of this essay is to show that Marcher‘s epiphany does not simply involve his recognition of the fact that he has wasted time that could have been spent in a meaningful relation- ship with May, as the author himself elucidated in his Notebooks (CN 199). It also encompasses his understanding that consciousness is not ―a stuff‖ or an entity but rather a process, as William James defined it. Ironically, this awareness is found out only as John Marcher abandons his search for knowledge. Lacan, along with those of William James, can enhance our perception of the nature of fantasy and the role of the unconscious. While their view of human psychology diverged in many ways, William James and Freud shared similar sensibilities as neuroscientists. Both men were deeply influenced by Darwin, and they were inclined to view the study of the human mind, or psyche, as a discipline that belonged within the realm of the natural sciences, as opposed to the humanities alone. In the same way, James‘s differentiation of ―primary memory‖ from ―secondary memory‖ finds a close parallel in Freud‘s categories of ―screen memory‖ and ―recollection.‖ For Freud, screen memory is the memory of childhood (which corresponds to James‘s term ―habits‖), while recollection is a type of remembering that is the sole province of human beings in possession of consciousness. Given that past events are recalled in the context of the present, they are bound to be remembered differently as time goes on. Interestingly, these concepts differ in terms of their strength, since James deals primarily with the nature of consciousness, cognition, and learning effects (which are the roots of Pragmatism and Phenomenology), while Freud focuses on remembering the past as the foundation of the unconscious and advocates the use of psychoanalysis to facilitate a patient‘s cure. In The Principles of Psychology, William observes that remembrance is similar to direct feeling, given that ―its object is suffused with a warmth and intimacy to which no object of mere conception ever attains‖ (158). He goes on to argue that for a state of mind to survive within the memory it must have endured ―for a certain length of time,‖ and this memory is lodged, not in one‘s consciousness, but in one‘s body and neurons; in the human brain, this phenomenon is described as the memory traces. In this work, William refers repeatedly to ―the primary memory,‖ arguing that without it consciousness would be impossible. He explains that ―an object of primary memory is not thus brought back; it never was lost‖. Hence, the secondary memory is not an automatically repeated act but rather a recollection of one‘s experiences past. Volume VIII, Issue XI, November/2019 Page No:287 International Journal of Research ISSN NO:2236-6124 William suggests that remembering is not an epistemology but a feeling and is produced in the present force. He goes on to argue that the past feeling must be acknowledged in order to be embraced by the present mental state and to be owned by it (159). In the community of self, the past is not to be divided from either memory or present thought. While we are not ignorant of the time gap, human consciousness flows continuously, absorbing certain portions of the past. In this regard, James‘s view precisely coincides with that of the recent neuroscientist, Gerald M. Edelman, who regards consciousness as the remembered present. In a similar vein, Freud‘s influential essay, ―Remembering, Repeating and Working Through,‖ argues, ―We must treat his [the patient‘s] illness, not as an event of the past, but as a present day force‖ (Standard 12: 151). What James and Freud essentially agreed upon was that human recollection does not involve a precise reflection of the past, in the same way that human consciousness does not reflect a precise reality. Consciousness ceaselessly follows the present moment, while, at the same time, the memory-traces adapt the new experience. Even primary memory is rather subjective, since it depends essentially on an individual‘s level of intimacy with a particular experience and her emotional state. Indeed, the cause of Marcher‘s obtuse failure to perceive May Bartram‘s passion was his mistaken belief that she had knowledge of his secret that was grounded in her detailed memory. Marcher is incapable of personalizing his experiences because he lacks the attentiveness to store the present moment. Divorced from the present, he struggles to share his secret with May. And yet, he realizes, even as he takes her ―so far into his confidence,‖ that he recalls very little about her. His apparent dearth of intimate feeling toward others is connected to the fact that he has few impressions of life. Over the years, it would seem that his experiences have left few traces upon his mind. Henry James develops the opening of the story with such precision that his approach calls to mind the phenomenon of cause and effect as though he were a historian or even a natural scientist. The reader comes to appreciate that these early developments are indispensable to the construction of a net (a lure) that will shroud the characters‘ friendship, complicate their interaction, and contribute to a tragic outcome. At this point in the narrative, James cautiously sheds light on the psyche of Marcher, who is immediately struck by May‘s pleasant and ―distinctly handsome‖. In addition, the protagonist is engaged by her initial words to him: ―I met you years and years ago in Rome. I remember all about it.‖ These words resonate, evoking in his mind the image of a goddess of wisdom: ―Her face and her voice, all at his service now, worked the miracle the impression operating like the torch of a lamplighter who torches into flame, one by one, a long row of gas jets‖. Volume VIII, Issue XI, November/2019 Page No:288 International Journal of Research ISSN NO:2236-6124 James devotes so much space to a description of Marcher‘s state of mind at this point. The author‘s emphasis on the degree to which Marcher is impressed by Bartram‘s memory, along with the differing degrees of memory between the two characters, conveys two important things. Not only has May Bartram retained a passion for him since their first meeting, but Marcher also appears to be enamored with her: ―They looked at each other as with the feeling of an occasion missed‖ (552). Therefore, despite the critical consensus regarding Marcher‘s supposedly cold and selfish mindset, it is clear that James wanted his readers to appreciate that Marcher‘s passion (far from being absent) is deeply repressed and to such a degree that he, himself, does not become fully aware of it until May Bartram‘s death. However, struggle to avoid behaving selfishly toward May when they start to meet on a regular basis. Given this set of circumstances, we should make some effort to place his behavior in the context of his predicament. Indeed, it is Marcher‘s repressed passion that helps the reader to understand May Bartram‘s constant protection and devotion to a haunted, and stunted, figure like the protagonist. James takes the reader deep inside the mind of the protagonist, shedding light on Marcher‘s loneliness as he struggles with misgivings over his failure to establish a meaningful relationship.
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