Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Autobiography personal narrative
Autobiography personal narrative
Autobiography personal narrative
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Autobiography personal narrative
The Warning in The Beast in the Jungle
"In the case of Henry James there should not be much dispute about the
exactness and completeness of the representation; no man ever strove more
studiously or on the whole more successfully to reproduce the shape and
color and movement of his æsthetic experience." These are the remarks
of Stuart P. Sherman from his article entitled "The Aesthetic Idealism of
Henry James," from The Nation, p. 397, April 5, 1917. Now, some seventy-two
years later critical readers are still coming to terms with James'
aesthetic vision. As we have discussed in class, James aestheticizes
everything. Sexual intercourse, carnal knowledge, painful self-discovery,
human mortality, etc., are often figuratively and metaphorically veiled so
as not to disturb or repulse the reader. Taking a closer look at this, one
might say that James did this so that he himself would not be repulsed.
Perhaps James wasn't thinking so much of the reader as he was thinking of
himself.
In "The Beast in the Jungle" James has aesthetically hidden the
reality of Marcher's destiny by treating it as a symbolic crouching beast
waiting to spring. The reader will ask why James has done this? Wouldn't it
be more effective to speak plainly of Marcher's and Bartram's relationship?
The author could tell us exactly why John Marcher does not marry May
Bartram. The narrator tells us that Marcher's situation "was not a
condition he could invite a woman to share" and "that a man of feeling
didn't cause himself to be accompanied by a lady on a tiger hunt" (p. 417).
This is nonsense. Marcher won't marry May because he doesn't want to
inconvenience her with his condition or endanger her life on a tiger hunt?
First of all, he inconveniences her right up to the day of her death with
his condition, and as for the metaphorical tiger hunt, what exactly does
that refer to? What is it here that James will not speak of in plain
language? Simply what is the meaning of this; what is the author's intent?
One might speculate that this story is somewhat autobiographical in
that James himself never married and often carried on close personal
relationships with a very select few. The various biographers of his life
This is just like in the story, Everything Will be Okay, how James is trying to be just like his brothers and his father. For example, he was going to go hunting with his dad, not because he wanted to, but because he wanted his father to like
to get his point across to the reader more easily than if he were to
He was offered a “Club cap” but James “gave it back” to his friend, Kris. They waited until Kris left the apartment building, then played a game of checkers. James had wanted to fit in with his friends in the “K-Bones” club but had realized that his brother was more important. He pushed his friend away to play games with Isaac. Furthermore, James has to “take care of” Isaac when his mother is at work. Even when he is trying to fit in with a devious club, he would still “hold Isaac’s hand” or even “carry him home”. James is a very nice and caring brother. This is logical because, that is what a good brother should look like. James must truly love Isaac as his brother, and admires his family more than his
Unknown, to James at this point he did not realize that he was having a problem with a psychological theory called behaviorism. Now this theory is one that is saying human behavior is developed through learning experiences which in this case would apply to James. His behavior as an adult was reflected by the way he was treated as a kid by his father and mother because they fought all the time. They never truly paid any attention to him, which in terms taught him how to stay out of their way and learn how to steal and burglarize places without getting caught. Therefore, within the psychological theory of behaviorism Behaviorists saw crime as something that is a learned response to life’s situations such as James situation which led him to a life of crime because of his parents. Although, he was never truly mistreated, he did not receive his father attention due to the fact of the way his father was treated as a child growing up an abusive household. Therefore, he did not want to place his son in the same situation. There is also the fact that James could be suffering from the psychodynamic theory which says that a person’s personality can be controlled by their unconscious mental process and that is grounded in them in early childhood. These entire things such as the id, ego, and superego
As a boy, James questions his unique family and color through his confusion of race issues. Later in his life, as an adolescent, his racial perplexity results in James hiding from his emotions, relying only on the anger he felt against the world. It is only when James uncovers the past of his mother does he begin to understand the complexity of himself and form his own identity. As James matures, issues of race in his life become too apparent to ignore. His multiracial family provides no clear explanations on prejudices and racism, and when "[James] asked [Ruth] if she was white, she'd say, No. I'm light skinned and change the subject.
At the beginning, James doesn't allow others to sense any form of his weaknesses. He preferably let the world see him that he is tough and can take care of himself. The character of James makes me realize that we all have stories to tell about even if it is the war between you and your demons that you had encountered, may encounter or will encounter. I don't want others to see my weaknesses to make his/her own judgment about who I am. But somehow that opinions made you think about who are you in their perspective or point of
He knew that his mother would not be worrying about these things if he was there to look after the family and everything else. Throughout the rest of the story, there are many other instances where James's shows his maturity--from walking in the bitter cold, to the confrontation between his mother and the pimp in the café. Being without, has taught James to be appreciative. More importantly, he has learned that the decisions he makes affect not only him, but everyone around him.
This gives the readers a clue that what is to happen in the upcoming text is a
...ing—this was knowledge, knowledge under the breath of which the very tears in his eyes seemed to freeze” (1177). He could have escaped his fate of nothingness and loneliness, “The escape would have been to love her; then, then he would have lived” (1176). Marcher’s punishment for being so selfish and self-absorbed was that “he had been the man of his time, the man, to whom nothing on earth was to have happened” (1176). This was the story of a man whose ego was the “beast” in the “jungle” of life.
reading, “I went on: That he 's an injury to the others” (James 15). The governess speculates that
agree with the actions she performs and his guilt overwhelms him. The guilt he feels pushes him to do
His curiosity made him ask the following question to his mother: ‘Then why don’t you look like Rodney’s mother, or Pete’s mother? How come you don’t look like me?’ (McBride 12). James noticed that his classmates were the same skin tone as their mother, however since James was dark skinned and his mother was white skinned he questioned if she was his biological mother but she made established that she is his mother. James never understood why his mother chose to live amongst the black community until he became an adult, but as a child he had no clue why but he knew she was at risk because she was a white woman. Here James states, “But there was a part of me that feared black power very deeply for the obvious reason. I thought black power would be the end of my mother. I had swallowed the white mans fear of the Negro, as we were called back then, whole” (McBride 27). A black kid usually wouldn’t be worried about their mother living in a black community but given James circumstance, he had a white mother which was not seen too often at that time so out of love, he was worried that his mother would be harmed for being a white person living amongst the black community. For having a white mother he was often teased. Wanting to live a
He lived a life without parental guidance. His mother left him with his father when he was only 4 years old. James was often left alone while his father traveled to turpentine camps selling tar for a living. James recalls the times he spent alone walking around in the woods looking for doodlebugs, and playing a harmonica his father gave him. During this time alone, he never had anyone around to talk to but himself (Brenchley, 2003).
...r but Octavia tells him "You not a bum," she says. "You a man."(p.404) This is significant because it shows he is not seen as a young boy by his mother anymore, he is now seen as a man. We see the influence and change in James by all of the life lessons his mother instills in him, she tells him he needs to not cry, to be strong, and be able to stand alone symbolizes that he must be independent, he must also put others before himself and do things he may not like to do but must do as a necessity to live, such as killing the cardinal birds for supper. Helena also shows James that everything in life you must work for, that is why she tells him to take out the trash cans.
James was an authoritarian parent. He was controlling, in-charge and no one questioned him. He would play the role of the doting father. When his children made mistakes, he made a point to criticize them. He often compared them to other kids that he felt were “more perfect.” When his often unspoken expectations were not met he would yell and scream striking fear into his entire family. “He’s not a warm, fuzzy kind of guy, and he’s not going to inspire feelings of intimacy. But when his system works, he can boast about one thing: His recruits tend to obey” (Dewar).