was able to describe in careful detail the sensation of dying and the symptoms associated with it. It was most liable to befall him when he had dropped into a pleasant sleep after doing rather too much and increasing his hyperpiesia. He was roused abruptly, on these occasions, by a surging sensation behind the sternum, spreading into the head and neck and down the arms, and associated with the indescribable conviction that he was dying. There was no feeling of faintness or failure of consciousness, and no pronounced changes in pulse-rate or colour.
Ryleâs own medical and biological explanation of these sensations was that: âThe heart ⊠at a time of muscular anoxia, announced its distress by pain and by a secondary arrest of bodily movements, and might induce a reflex respiratory inhibition as well. The biological purpose of the whole episode would thus be a warning or protective oneâ (Ryle 1928, 371).
Interestingly, our contemporary physician defines the syndrome in very similar, albeit slightly more precise, terms:
Since Descartes weâve had a tendency to believe that from the chin down we are just meat and plumbing. Angor animi suggests that there is more to us than that; that in some way we become aware when a valve is no longer working or that a tear, or âdissection,â is developing within the wall of the aorta. As a sensation, angor animi carries great predictive power: I have ordered an urgent CT scan of the chest because of a patientâs conviction that theyâre about to die.
(Francis 2014, 38)
I cite these detailed medical depictions of angor animi at length because I believe that the phenomenon is emblematic of a very peculiar variety of fear. According to SĆownik ĆaciĆsko-polski [A Polish-Latin Dictionary], the primary meaning of angor is literal and denotes âsuffocation, chokingâ (âAngorâ 1998, 191pass). This physical sensation is, however, extended to refer to a number of mental states, including âfear, anguish, anxiety, trouble, vexation, and mental distressâ (ibid.). In English, angor animi is often rendered as âanguish of the soul,â an expression which also combines a bodily sensation with mental suffering. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) tells us that âanguishâ is derived from Old French angustia, which meant âstraitness, tightness,â and, in plural, âstraits.â Let us notice that, interestingly, the word which basically designates a geographical feature also carries metaphorical meanings of difficulty, predicament, trouble, and plight (e.g., âdire straitsâ), and as such is connotatively redolent of âdistress.â The OED also references the Latin word angustus, which means ânarrow, tightâ (âAnguishâ 1989, 460). Again, this very tangibly physical term also evokes situations of pressure, discomfort, and even enforced immobility. If we remove the phrase âangor animiâ from its medical context and apply it to social settings, it also becomes a metaphor for a very special situation where the belief that annihilation is imminent prevails. Such a conviction of impending death can be felt not only by individuals but by entire cultures, societies, and communities as well. The latter can be oppressed by an acute sense of choking, tightness, and tension, a feeling which only death seems capable of removing.
Henry Jamesâs novella The Beast in the Jungle (2011 [1903]) is commonly regarded as one of the writerâs greatest literary feats. In her study of Jamesâs life and work, Millicent Bell insists that ââThe Beast in the Jungleâ may be Jamesâs most extreme expression of the theme of human character as potentiality which cannot or will not move out into the world of actionâ (1991, 256). With this thematic focus, it is perhaps no wonder that the novella has invited predominantly psychoanalytical readings. Such a line of interpretation is encouraged by the peculiar personalities of the storyâs protagonists: self-centered John Marcher and his devoted May Bartram, and by subtle analogies between the novellaâs plot and Jamesâs complicated and mysterious life (Young 2008, 225â37).
The psychoanalytically inflected readings focus principally on refined explorations of the protagonistsâ mental states, and often seek to unravel the enigma that Marcher harbors. Most interpreters tend to agree that Marcher poignantly exemplifies the âunlived life,â but they differ as to the reasons behind this. Their diagnoses range from the protagonistâs alleged, concealed, and unwitting homoeroticism (Sedgwick 1990, 182â212), to his incapacity to stand up to lifeâs demands, to the intricate power relations between the protagonists (Heyns 1997), to finally concluding that in Jamesâs writings, this is the âmost powerful short story on the subject of sexual and marital inaction, confused sexual identity, and evasive personal self-deceptionâ (Kaplan 1999, 456).
Nevertheless, I believe that Jamesâs texts emblematizes a different kind of fear than angor animi, namely, a fear that makes us so preoccupied with its object that we fail to notice anything else, including our own death. Before I elaborate on this insight, let me briefly summarize the novella even though I realize that any plot summary of The Beast in the Jungle will rob it of its uniqueness, which lies in that nothing actually happens in the story. The narrative is woven of fleeting mental states, interrupted conversations, and vague feelings.
The protagonist of the novella, John Marcher, accidentally meets a woman whose acquaintance he made several years earlier. He hardly remembers their first meeting, and is shocked to be reminded by May Bartram that he confided his deepest secret to her back then. She is actually the only human being who knows his mystery:
âWhat exactly was the account I gave â?â âOf the way you did feel? Well, it was very simple. You said you had had from your earliest time, as the deepest thing within you, the sense of being kept for something rare and strange, possibly prodigious or terrible, that was sooner or later to happen to you, that you had in your bones the foreboding and the conviction of, and that would perhaps overwhelm you.â
(James 2011, 12)
At this moment a bond is established between the protagonists, which helps Marcher overcome, at least for a while, the fear that lies at the core of his life. Yet the bond must remain extraordinary, uncoventionalized, and indeterminate:
Something or other lay in wait for him, amid the twists and the turns of the months and the years, like a crouching Beast in the Jungle. It signified little whether the crouching Beast were destined to slay him or be slain. The definite point was the inevitable spring of the creature; and the definite lesson from that was that a man of feeling didnât cause himself to be accompanied by a lady on a tiger hunt. Such was the image under which he had ended by figuring his life.
(ibid., 20)
As years go by, Marcher and Bartram often see each other, but essentially nothing changes in their relationship. The âBeastâ is the axis of their shared life, which is their only ârealâ life. Whatever happens beyond it is brushed aside by James in a few curt sentences. The overall stalemate is somewhat disturbed when May Bartram falls terminally ill. In a few conversations, she intimates that she knows what has happened â that the beast has made its spring. Yet Marcher is at a loss about what to make out of his long-time friendâs confession. This is how their last conversation plays out:
âIâm not sure youâve understood. Youâve nothing to wait for more. It has come.ââŠ
âYou mean that it has come as a positive definite occurrence, with a name and a date?â
âPositive. Definite. I donât know about the âname,â but, oh, with a date!â
He found himself again too helplessly at sea.
âBut come in the night â come and passed me by?â
May Bartram had her strange faint smile.
âOh no, it hasnât passed you by.â
âBut if I havenât been aware of it and it hasnât touched me â?â
âAh, your not being aware of itâ â and she seemed to hesitate an instant to deal with this â âYour not being aware of it is the strangeness in the strangeness. Itâs the wonder of the wonder.â
(ibid., 46â7)
This is where the plot basically comes to an end, and what remains is a painful epiphany Marcher experiences when, some time after Bartramâs death, he realizes the point, or rather the pointlessness, of his life:
Oneâs doom, however, was never baffled, and on the day she told him his own had come down she had seen him but stupidly stare at the escape she offered him. The escape would have been to love her; then, then he would have lived. She had lived â who could say now with what passion? â since she had loved him for himself; whereas he had never thought of her (ah, how it hugely glared at him!) but in the chill of his egotism and the light of her useâŠ. The Beast, at its hour, had sprung ⊠as he didnât guess; it had sprung as she hopelessly turned fr...