Love as an Act of Dissimulation in “The Beast in the Jungle”

I will explore various psychological concepts of memory, consciousness, and love as endless talking, postulated by William James, Freud, and Lacan. The goal of this essay is to show that Marcher’s epiphany does not simply involve his recognition of the fact that he has wasted time that could have been spent in a meaningful relationship with May; it also encompasses his understanding that consciousness is not “a stuff,” or an entity, but rather a process, as William James defined it. Ironically, this awareness is achieved only as he abandons his search for “knowledge.”