Jayber Crow

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-3

Part 1, Chapters 4-6

Part 1, Chapters 7-9

Part 2, Chapters 10-12

Part 2, Chapters 13-15

Part 2, Chapters 16-18

Part 2, Chapters 19-22

Part 3, Chapters 23-25

Part 3, Chapters 26-28

Part 3, Chapters 29-32

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Part 1, Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “The Barber in Port William”

The narrative begins with a note from the author warning against finding symbolism in the text and an epigraph from “The Definition of Love,” a poem by the Cavalier poet Andrew Marvell. Protagonist Jayber Crow narrates from the first person his life story of being a barber in Port William, Kentucky from 1937 to 1969. The barber shop is called Jayber Crow’s or just Jayber’s by some. Jayber is still the town barber, but he no longer lives in the town. When Jayber came to town, the community was still emerging from the Great Depression. The barbershop is at the center of the town, and Jayber enjoys watching the town from inside. He keeps his prices low, and his bank is a cigar box. Jayber comes and goes as he pleases from the shop often staying away for several hours walking, fishing with Burley Coulter, or visiting neighbors. He tells of several humorous events he has witnessed from inside his shop. Once Grover Gibbs suctioned a plunger to the town mechanic Portly Jones’s head, and Fielding Berlew was almost run over by a truck. Jayber watches pickup baseball games and Uncle Ab Rowanberry walking to and from his five daughters’ houses carrying his sack full of all his belongings. Port William’s school only goes to eighth grade. Jayber did not finish school but enjoys watching each day as the children are released, and one day he sees Mattie Keith for the first time. “The brief, laughing look that she had given me made me feel extraordinarily seen, as if after that I might be visible in the dark” (26). He is instantly attracted to her, especially her dark eyes.

Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary: “Goforth”

Jayber narrates the present in 1986. He recalls the year 1939 when had been the town barber for two years and when he first notices Mattie. He is 24 years old. Some people in town have given him the nickname Cray. Jayber’s real name is Jonah but has always gone by just J. His customers began calling him Jaybird, which eventually turned into Jayber. Jayber was born August 3, 1914, in Goforth just before World War I began. Jayber’s mother’s name was Iona Quail. She became pregnant with him before she married his father Luther, a blacksmith. Jayber cannot remember specifics of his early life, but he remembers they were poor: “We lived, I know, a life with very little margin. We were not hungry or cold, but we had nothing to spare” (29). In the winter of 1918, while the war raged overseas, a historic ice storm hit the town. Both of Jayber’s parents became ill and died in February of 1918. He is taken to live with his Aunt Cordie and Uncle Othy.

Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary: “Squires Landing”

Jonah’s aunt and uncle lost all three of their children to illness, so they are happy to care for him. They live near a river and Jonah recalls how long it took for the land to recover from the ravages of the ice storm. He relates the story of Emmet Edge, a local ferryman, whose boat was stuck in the ice. When the ice melted, Emmet scrambled for shore certain his boat was lost. They found it later floating on top of a chunk of ice. The Dagget family lives nearby and grows tobacco. Jonah enjoys spending his days watching his uncle work in the barn or admiring the beauty of the river that runs next to the property. The river is used to transport goods and people by riverboat, and young Jonah loves watching the boats unloading at the dock. He ponders the history of the river and how it has shaped the history and lives of those living near its banks. “The river, the river itself, leaves marks but bears none” (35). Jonah enjoys the simple life of working on the farm and helping in Uncle Othy’s store. The store sells items people cannot grow like pepper and coffee and is a popular gathering place in the community. They are friends with the Woolforks and Thripple families. Put Woolfork is a hard-working man as are the Thripples, whom Jonah calls Aunt Ada and Uncle Arch. Ben and Ellie Fewclothes are a Black couple who live nearby and often sell chickens and eggs to Othy to sell at the store. Jonah is close with his Aunt Cordie, and she teaches him a lot about hard work. Uncle Othy teaches Jonah to fish and use a boat on the river. Uncle Othy and Jonah deliver groceries to a blind man they call Dark Tom. Shortly after the summer of 1923 when Jonah is 10 years old, Uncle Othy dies. Jonah and Cordie survive with help from friends and neighbors, but Cordie’s health begins to fail, and she dies in her sleep. Jonah, now Jayber as an old man, is at the end of his life. He lives near the river again, and it reminds him of happier days. He is preparing for death by purchasing a grave plot near where his parents are buried.

Part 1, Chapters 1-3 Analysis

Wendell Berry begins the novel by setting up two important frameworks for how the story will be told. First, he builds his story on a community and provides rich, detailed descriptions of Port William to develop a strong sense of time and place. Port William, though a fictional place, is a lively community still in the throes of the Great Depression. The individuals who populate it come alive on the page with descriptions of their antics as seen through the local barber, the windows of his shop serving as a type of eyes watching the town. Tales like that of Grover Gibbs and Emmet Edge inject humor into the narrative but also establish the theme of memory. Jayber functions as a living history book telling the stories of the simple people of his town. The author juxtaposes the town of Port William with its neighboring rural communities that are no less lively but whose beauty lies more in the terrain and the mighty river and its tributaries. The people in the town and outlying areas are hard-working individuals toughened by the hard economic times but develop a strong sense of community as they depend on each other for not just economic survival but also friendship.

Second, Jonas “Jayber” Crow narrates the story in the present day as a 72-year-old man. The power of memory is established early as a narrative tool and Jayber’s memories of the past are woven into his present-day philosophical thoughts and musings. Much like the river flows through the rural communities surrounding Port William, Jayber’s memories weave in and out of his thoughts. The stories from the past appear not so much as flashbacks but as vignettes from days gone by as if the reader has joined Jayber on the porch for a visit. Through Jayber’s eyes, the reader learns about a small town’s growth and change at the beginning of the 20th century and also how one man’s life is grown and shaped by the world around him. Jayber experiences pain at an early age being born on the cusp of the First World War and losing both parents to the 1918 flu pandemic. After being adopted by his aunt and uncle, he is orphaned yet again when he is only 10 years old. The narrator establishes himself early in the text as a person who has seen a lot and endured much in his lifetime, but by far it is the people in his life who have made the most impact on who he is today. Jayber also bears witness to a country emerging into modernity. His descriptions of watching the end of the steamboat era mark a time in history when the world was shifting as technology increased and the old ways of conducting life and business are replaced with newer, faster, more productive systems and machinery. The river becomes a symbol of change in the novel; as Jayber watches the world around him shift, but the river is constant, unchangeable.

The title for Chapter 2, “Goforth,” has a symbolic meaning as it is a Biblical reference to many of God’s commandments: God told Adam and Eve to go forth and multiply in Genesis, and Jesus told the apostles to go forth and make disciples. In this chapter, Jayber tells of his earliest memories and how his earlier experiences shape the man he is today. He was not born into wealth or status, but his parents and relations who raise him taught him the value of hard work and the power of community. Jayber’s command is to go forth into a life of humble service and honest industry honoring those who came before him through a life that is not glamorous but well spent.