A crucial example of situational irony defines the character of John Marcher. The irony at the heart of Marcher's story is that he believes himself to be destined for "something rare and strange" and spends his entire life waiting for such a destiny. However, while waiting, he wastes his potential and prevents himself from achieving anything. May first alludes to Marcher's fate in Chapter 1:
You said you had had from your earliest time, as the deepest thing within you, the sense of being kept for something rare and strange, possibly prodigious and terrible, that was sooner or later to happen to you, that you had in your bones the foreboding and the conviction of, and that would perhaps overwhelm you.
Here, May reminds Marcher of his previous words to her about his own fate. Despite the fact that he has forgotten such a crucial statement, Marcher feels a conviction that he will someday meet something "prodigious and terrible," "rare and strange." The irony of his forgetting what becomes the most important aspect of his life sets the scene for the dramatic reveal at the end of the book. Throughout the remainder of the plot, Marcher continues to ask May about his fate. While waiting for it, he does not figure out that his "destiny" is simply to wait. Destiny isn't destiny at all; it depends entirely on his own decisions, and he decides to wait, thus he is destined for nothing. Although he focuses all his energy on this "prodigious" fate, it never comes to him.
These moments of situational irony point to the paradoxical idea at the heart of James's text. While waiting for fate, Marcher misses out on it. This idea is significant to the story because it makes clear that destinies do not happen to people but rather must be created by them. By thus establishing the importance of individual action, Henry James suggests that all people can choose to become active agents of their own fates. John Marcher serves as a fictional example of the consequences of prolonged passivity.
