Determinism, Love and Inspiration in 'The Beast in the Jungle' Batrishia Rakhim College

Henry James is considered the master of subtle psychological fiction, and in The Beast in the Jungle he demonstrates the powerful extent in which determinism can reach and bar an individual from any consideration of free will. This situation will be especially probable if such an individual were to be as self-absorbed as the protagonist, John Marcher.

Determinism is a doctrine by which philosophers imply that people are ultimately victims of fate. Something as powerful as life cannot be altered, and this is the philosophy which Marcher has adopted in correlation with the romanticized fate he has led himself to believe as a result of his egotism. Marcher places himself on a pedestal which his own conceited mind has built, believing that he stands out among other ordinary human beings as a heroic figure who is “destined” for “something rare and strange, possibly prodigious and terrible”. He calls this self-made prophecy of his as the “crouching Beast in the jungle,” awaiting the moment to pounce on Marcher and “slay him or “be slain.”

Marcher believes that the Beast is something which will come to him in due time, and is not something which he should trigger to change his life in any way. The idea of fate causing a drastic turn...