“It's being here now that's
important. There's no past and there's no future. Time is a very misleading
thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but
we can't relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don't know if there
is one.” –George Harrison
John Marcher, the main character in
Henry James’s “The Beast in the Jungle”, struggled with every part of this
quote – “being here now”, the inability to relive the past, the uncertainty of
the future… and even the concept of Time itself. Marcher believed he had a “beast”
waiting for him later in his lifetime. This beast was something dreadful that
would occur to him. However, he did not know what this “beast” would be.
Marcher believed himself special because of this knowledge. After all, who else
KNOWS part of their future? The only other person that Marcher ever shared his
secret with was May Bartram, the woman who loved him. Because he was only
concerned with hiding and waiting for his secret, John Marcher missed out on enjoying
his life. If only one could jump into a story, place George Harrison’s wise
words carefully in, and change the fate of this character.
I wish I could change that
Marcher’s one and only thought was his belief that his life would be defined by
a catastrophic event. I wish that his purpose in life was not hiding this
secret. If only he would see that the most spectacular part of his life was
right before him all along! I wish I could tell him that he would die terribly
heart broken that he did not cherish his moments with May Bartram – the woman
who was captivated by him. However, he did not stop thinking of his secret long
enough to realize he was captivated by her. I would take a space ship to travel
into this story. Or plug in the time traveller to reach this mysterious couple.
But sadly, time travel is not
possible. Jumping into stories does not exist. And yet, re-writing stories
does. Why don’t we re-write the story of the man who “knew” he was special
because he was to suffer in the future? Well, friends, here is the answer:
There is so much to learn from this story!
If we were to dwell on the fact
that we cannot jump into stories, we would not be living in the present. So
instead of pining over this fact, let us take our own advice and make the best
of this story!
There are a few things we can take
from this. First, we should not focus only on the future. John Marcher focused
on the future, and it caused him to go through life without enjoying it. It
caused him to lose the thing that was really the most important to him: May
Bartram. She gave him the opportunity to love her, but he did not recognize
that because he was living in the future.
The second thing we can learn is to
not only focus on the past. Towards the end of the story, May assured John that
the horrible Beast had passed. “It does us the good it can. It does us the good
that it isn’t here. It’s past. It’s
behind…” (The American Tradition in Literature 463) Instead of simply enjoying
this fact, Marcher chose to think about what “it” was and how he could have missed it. This caused him to, again,
lose May. After she had offered herself to him, he stayed focused on the past.
May then died and was lost to him forever.
Being focused on the past and
future caused John Marcher to lose the present… and in the long run, his life.
So, friends, this is what not to
do. But what SHOULD we do? Do we only focus on the present? Do we forget
everything in the past? Do we not think of the future? No, of course not! Let’s
look to the example of May.
May learned from the past. She saw
that John lost his life because of his belief. She did not always see that, but
she learned along the way. “What I mean isn’t what I’ve always meant. It’s
different” (The American Tradition in Literature 459). After this realization,
May hoped that they could love each other. This hope caused her to say, “It’s
never too late.” “She had, with her gliding step, diminished the distance
between them, and she stood nearer to him…” She offered for him to live in the
present and escape wasting his life. “The escape would have been to love her;
then then he would have lived” (The
American Tradition in Literature 460). You see, May learned from the past and
hoped in the future. This caused her to live in the present.
So, again, what can we learn from
this story?
There is the present, the past, and
the future. It is of no use to dwell on only one of those. We must learn from
the past, hope in the future, and live in the present.
Live.
