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Chapter 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Beast in the Jungle, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Fate and Failure
Understanding and Connection
Love and Loss
Courage vs. Cowardice
Summary
Analysis
Marcher tries to visit May the next day, but for the first time, she can’t—or won’t—see him. Marcher begins to doubt all the things May told him earlier; maybe she was lying to spare his feelings. After all, what could the beast possibly be besides her death and the loneliness that will follow it? Admittedly, it’s not a rare or great fate but rather an ordinary one. Still, it’s enough for Marcher. After everything he and May shared together, what could be worse than missing her?
Marcher previously dismissed the idea that May’s death was his fate. Now, he’s willing to admit that it might be. This is a touching realization, but it’s marred by Marcher’s previous desire to suffer in order to prove that his fate was real. If May’s death is Marcher’s fate, then he’ll suffer after all. Once again, Marcher is making May’s life (and death) all about him. This passage also suggests that Marcher is starting to realize that he’s not necessarily different from other people: if his fate is to lose May, he’d be just like everyone who’s lost a loved one. The fact that he doesn’t reject this possibility outright is a significant character shift.
Themes
After a week of ignoring Marcher, May allows him to visit her. He can tell that she wants to lessen his panic before she dies, so she brings up the topic of his fate herself, saying that he misunderstood her earlier: his fate has already happened. Marcher asks if that means there was a name and date for it, and she says that there might not be a name, but it did happen on a specific date. It didn’t pass Marcher by, but he wasn’t aware that it was happening. In fact, his ignorance is the very thing that makes it a strange fate.
Because readers are experiencing the novella from Marcher’s perspective, May’s words are still unclear, and she’s intentionally ambiguous here. During her last visit with Marcher, May said that his fate was still to come; now, she’s saying that it already happened. It’s possible that Marcher’s fate occurred over the last week, but it’s likely that his fate happened during his moment of eye contact with May. This would explain why she was upset at the time, and it would explain why she claims Marcher didn’t notice his fate happening as it happened. But May also implies that Marcher’s ignorance is part of his fate, so maybe May was trying to prevent Marcher’s fate during their encounter. This would explain why she didn’t want to say what his fate was—maybe she didn’t want to interfere in it. But the novella leaves all of these questions unanswered for now, inviting readers to speculate alongside Marcher.
Themes
Literary Devices
Marcher might not know what his fate is, but May knows it. He should be happy: he has proof that he wasn’t waiting in vain. For her part, May is glad that she now knows what his fate wasn’t. Marcher wonders if that means that his fate could have been worse, and she hesitates before reminding him of all the fears they once shared about his fate. He’s surprised, since this implies that his fate was something they never thought to be afraid of. May reminds him that they never imagined they’d be discussing it after it had already happened. But to Marcher, it doesn’t seem like anything did happen.
This passage confirms that despite what Marcher claims to do for May, she gives more to Marcher than he gives to her, as she states here that she’s bearing a burden on his behalf. May’s comment that she knows what Marcher’s fate wasn’t is ambiguous, but it's worth noting that this is the second time May has suggested that Marcher’s fate involves an absence: in the last passage, she told Marcher that his ignorance about his fate is what makes that fate unique. Now, she implies that his fate is what rules out another fate. Finally, this passage confirms that Marcher believes courage means acclimating to various fears as opposed to facing the unknown.
Themes
May presses on with her point, saying that before, Marcher’s fate was always upcoming. Now, it’s in the past. Marcher says that he preferred when his fate was going to happen, since its absence will correspond with May’s imminent death. Suddenly, Marcher feels that this is the last time he’ll ever stand in front of her. He tells her that he believes what she’s saying, but to him, nothing feels like it’s over since he didn’t experience anything. How can his fate be something he hasn’t felt himself?
Marcher’s implication that he’d prefer to keep waiting for his fate if it meant May could stay alive is another significant character shift. Marcher has designed his life to avoid getting to know other people in a genuine way, effectively prioritizing his fate over human connection. Now, he’s suggesting that he’d be willing to prioritize May over his fate. Marcher’s self-imposed isolation never seemed to satisfy him, but he explicitly confirms that dissatisfaction here. That being said, it’s possible that he might feel differently if he knew what his fate was—part of his frustration and grief is centered around the fact that his fate passed him by.
Themes
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May says that Marcher misunderstands again: his fate is to suffer without being aware of that suffering. He says that he’s currently suffering anyway due to his ignorance about his fate, and May sharply tells him to stop. As she does so, Marcher can almost see something pass across his eyes, and it gives him an idea. May insists that Marcher shouldn’t try to find out what his fate was, because he doesn’t need to know. Marcher’s idea returns to him, and he wonders whether his fate is the thing May is dying from. She tells him that she’d stay alive for him if she could, but she can’t. Their visit comes to an end.
Earlier, May’s motivations for keeping Marcher’s fate from him were uncertain. The novella now confirms that she’s trying to stop Marcher from “suffering” unnecessarily, again demonstrating her selflessness (especially in contrast with Marcher’s constant selfishness). Apparently, May thinks that Marcher can’t do anything about his fate now, since it’s already happened—this is different from the scene of eye contact, when his fate was still upcoming and she wanted him to guess it. It’s not clear how May’s death could be related to Marcher’s fate, but if it is connected, then Marcher’s fate must have had something to do with May.
Themes
This meeting ends up being their last one, because May won’t allow Marcher to visit as she gets sicker. Instead, random relatives visit her, hoping that she’ll leave them money. Marcher is frustrated that these relatives have more of a claim to May than he does. Unfortunately, no one recognizes how important she was to him, since they had no formal tie to one another. After May dies, there’s a small crowd at her funeral, but even so, Marcher is treated as a random visitor rather than the deeply grieved mourner he is. As the weeks go on, he almost wants to do something that will prove how important May was to him. Sometimes, he wonders if he should have done something like that earlier.
Obviously, the reason no one notices Marcher’s deep grief is that he never married May. His frustration here is the consequence of his own actions, as he wanted to remain a bachelor and to allow May to make him seem like a “normal” man spending time with a “dull” woman. He seems to regret that decision now, as he wonders whether he should have done something to prove May’s importance to him earlier, and the only thing he could have done then was marry her. Earlier, the secrecy Marcher and May shared seemed logical. Now, it only makes Marcher more isolated from those around him (since he can’t grieve with anyone) and more frustrated than ever with that isolation.
Themes
Marcher wonders what he could have done to formalize his relationship with May while she was alive, since any explanation would have given away his secret. This is why he doesn’t tell anyone about their strange relationship now, even though the beast is gone. The whole story would sound “foolish.” And even if he were to tell anyone about the beast—the way he told May—it would only be for the sake of telling someone. At the moment, Marcher feels like he is wandering through an empty jungle, keeping an eye out for a beast that’s already attacked and wondering where it once hid. Finally, he accepts that whatever his fate was, it’s already happened.
This passage marks another character shift, because for the first time, Marcher toys with the idea of telling the public his secret and ending his isolation. Admittedly, he only considers doing so because his fate has come and gone—and he also quickly dismisses the idea, so it’s not a huge shift in character. Moreover, he dismisses it because he once again believes that other people wouldn’t understand his unique experience, even though he’s already grappled with the possibility that it wasn’t unique, and even though May understood it from the start. Still, the fact that Marcher wants to connect with others the way he connected with May is significant. But while Marcher claims to accept that his fate is over, he continues to imagine it as a violent beast, implying that he’s still anticipating an attack—as are readers, since it’s still not clear what Marcher’s fate was.
Themes
Even though May forbade him from guessing what his fate was, Marcher feels that his fate was stolen away from him and he wants to get it back. As a result, he has to figure out what his fate was, or else he’ll give up on life altogether. With this resolution, he decides to travel, hoping he’ll come up with some answers. Before he leaves, he visits May’s tomb to say goodbye but finds himself staring at it instead, hoping that the secret of his fate will emerge from the tomb. He imagines the tomb as May’s face, and he imagines that she doesn’t recognize him.
Marcher’s desperation to figure out what his fate was reads as selfish—even though May is gone, Marcher is still ignoring her wishes and invalidating the sacrifice she made for him (after all, she refused to tell him his fate for his own good). This passage also introduces the symbol of May’s tomb, which will come to represent lost possibilities for Marcher. But for now, Marcher seems to view the tomb as a representation of his own lost fate. Even though he imagines the tomb as an embodiment of May, he still sees that embodiment as a personal torment to him, again alluding to his self-centered view of May. But the fact that he imagines that May doesn’t recognize him also hints at how isolated Marcher feels, since the one person who understood him is gone.
Themes
