We meet on Monday the 24th to talk about "The Beast in the Jungle," by Henry James. As I've wrestled with the Beast, a few suggestions spring to mind to help ease your way to understanding this densely thicketed product of James's mature phase:
- Try reading the work as a fable, a story with a moral.
- "X-ray" (survey the structure of) the story, and you will notice that the narrator's omniscient observations occupy upwards of 90 percent of the text. The rest consists of conversations between the only two characters, John Marcher and May Bartram. Do a quick read of the entire story by paying your sole attention to their conversations. It's sometimes hard to keep track of who is speaking, so pencil in your own notation of "he said:" and "she said:".
- Note that the estate where the opening encounter between Marcher and May takes place is called "Weatherend." Note also: both their names contain months of the year.
- Pay attention to James's scheme as to time and space. After the opening encounter, James takes you back in time to another place (Italy). He later "fast forwards" to their lives in London.
- Think about how the work is divided into six numbered parts. What is James's design in doing this? Does the "deep" narrative divide neatly into six parts? Three parts? Two parts?
- Take a look at the electronic version of the text by clicking here. Do a search on the word "beast" to find the contexts for this key symbol.
- Finally, train yourself to take in enough oxygen during those s-o-o-o long narrator paragraphs (by my estimation some paragraphs number 500 words in length). If you keep at it, you will build up stamina and James's prose will yield its subtle meanings.
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