Book Description

Differentiated book- It has a historical context with research of the time-The Beast in the Jungle is a 1903 novel by Henry James, first published as part of the collection, The Better Sort. Almost universally considered one of James's best short stories, this story deals with appropriately universal themes: loneliness, destiny, love and death. The parable of John Marcher and his peculiar destiny has spoken to many readers who have speculated about the value and meaning of human life. John Marcher, the protagonist, reunites with May Bartram, a woman he met ten years earlier, who remembers his strange secret: Marcher is convinced that his life must be defined by a catastrophic or spectacular event, lurking as a "beast in the jungle". May decides to buy a house in London with the money she inherited from a great-aunt and spend her days with Marcher, curiously waiting for what fate holds.Marcher is a desperate fatalist, who believes he cannot marry so as not to subject his wife to her "spectacular destiny." He takes May to the theater and invites her to an occasional dinner, but does not allow him to approach him. While he sits idly by and lets the best years of his life pass, he knocks May down too, to the end where he discovers that the great misfortune of his life was to throw it away and ignore the love of a good woman, based on his absurd sense of feeling.