57 pages • 1 hour read
Wendell BerryJayber Crow
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Search for Meaning
The universal struggle of the human condition to discover one’s meaning and purpose in life is a common literary theme. In his novel Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry portrays his protagonist Jonah as a man who does not choose his destiny but is instead repeatedly unmade and remade by the circumstances that come into his life: “[E]ach change has been a birth, each having taken me to a new life from which I could not go back” (315). Like the chimerical changing of the river, chaotic in one moment and tranquil in another, circumstances can change a person’s life in an instant. Through Jayber’s journey, Berry reveals a character who finds meaning in allowing his trials, relationships, and acts of sacrificial love to transform him.
Jayber’s life trajectory is not linear. He resists the archetypal notion that a boy must leave home to strike out to make himself successful. Instead of taking him far away, Jayber’s path takes him home to root himself in a community and allows the community to shape him. His life is more episodic than epic, made up of many small moments of observation and contemplation with others and with himself along the way. Part 1 of the novel traces Jayber’s early life characterized by personal tragedy and loss. After being orphaned twice, he finds himself a nameless resident at an orphanage. Later, as a college dropout, Jayber wrestles with not making something of his life. He fears he does not fit in anywhere. “[I]n a society that was in some ways classless, I was in a class by myself” (139). Once the trade of barbering finds him and he returns to Port William to make a life, Part 2 sees Jayber finding meaning in his vocation. He treasures the gift of serving his community and uses his trade to foster relationships and in the process is changed internally. “What good did I get from it? I got to have love in my heart” (263). Jayber’s life in Port William is rich with friendships, but his heart longs for a partnership in love. He searches for fulfillment in vain with a casual arrangement with Clydie; however, Jayber only finds his soul’s satisfaction in the love of Mattie Keith Chatham.
Finding love for his imperfect neighbors like Cecelia Overhold and Troy Chatham sets Jayber on the path towards understanding sacrificial love. Once he comes to rest in the truth that love given is not always returned, he must make a choice. He can continue investing in relationships, giving of himself, or recede into being a bitter recluse. Jayber chooses love, and in doing so he chooses a life full of meaning. At the end of his life, he settles into his river camp at peace with the life he has lived. Jayber now finds his meaning in the sound of the wind and in the face of the river. “I had to look over what I had learned so far of life in this world and see what light my heart’s love now shed upon it” (264). Just as he is content to die having only a one-sided love with Mattie, she appears in the Nest Egg and Jayber is given the unexpected gift of intimacy with her and the knowledge she loves him in return. In the character of Jayber Crow and his quest to find meaning in his life, the author celebrates the value of simple life, not formed by dynamic change or choices but by a humble surrender to the unpredictable ebb and flow of life.
Memories: Knowing and Being Known
Berry explores the notion that when one generation passes away, it is incumbent on those who have heard and remembered their experiences to preserve a certain understanding and wisdom of the world within their imagination. The passage of time is a theme in all of Wendell Berry’s work. In his novel Jayber Crow, Berry creates a novel of remembering, placing his protagonist narrator within a web of knowing and being known. Berry values the importance of having the courage to remember people and places and events as they truly were, calling to mind what was good and what has been lost so that it may be restored. In telling the stories of Port William and its people, Jayber creates a deep sense of the unfolding of time in a particular place and all those who dwelt in it, preserving their legacy for generations in the future.
Individual memories are sacred. Jayber, from an early age, displays special affection and tenderness toward the elders in the community, calling them the “rememberers.” He is the barber, but he understands his most important job is to listen and pay attention to the stories told: “They were rememberers, carrying in their living thoughts all the history that such places as Port William ever have. I listened to them with all my ears and tried to remember what they said” (142). As he catalogs the bits and pieces of history and traditions from each individual, Jayber comes to an understanding of Port William and himself, as the collective memory defines the culture. When Jayber retires as the town barber, he does not cease to honor memory, and late in his life he recognizes he is now one of the rememberers. “I have in my mind word-of-mouth memories more than a hundred years old” (368). The memories he carries told to him by others join his memories as he becomes a living history of himself and his community.
Knowing and remembering create joy but with it comes loss and grief. A person cannot grieve what they never knew and cannot lament what they never felt. Jayber comes to the end of his life and sifts through the memories, through the debris of death, to see what remains. He digs the graves for those he has loved and through their memories mourns their absence. “[T]his country would always be populated with presences and absences, presences and absences, the living and the dead. The world as it is would always be a reminder of the world that was, and of the world that is to come” (148). Memory is a way to honor the dead and eulogize great loss. Jayber’s memories are nostalgic, reminding him of a time that has passed and giving him hope for a reunion in eternity in the future. The author affirms the power of memory in its ability to give one character perspective on their life and its necessity to safeguard and perpetuate the treasures of bygone days.
The Pursuit of Faith
Wendell Berry invites his readers into the pursuit of the sacred through humble, simple characters. Jayber Crow views the world through a traditional Christian lens but admits to periods of doubt and reconciling the lessons he hears espoused from the pulpit versus the teachings of Christ in the Bible. He cannot make sense of theology that preaches the hatred of the flesh when he sees so much beauty in humanity. Jayber’s distrust of organized religion finds its roots in his rejection of institutions that he feels remove people from nature and rob them of their individuality and creativity. When Jayber cannot reconcile his faith with the world and his existence in it, he concedes to creating a religion of his own based on loving his neighbors, fidelity to Mattie’s honor, and communing with God in nature.
Jayber’s first crisis of faith comes when he realizes prayer is not a way for humans to get what they want. He learns the painful lesson that living in this world requires resting in the uncomfortable tension of joy and sorrow. “It means that your will and God’s will may not be the same. It means there’s a good possibility that you won’t get what you pray for. It means despite your prayers you are going to suffer” (67). Once he learns to accept suffering as a part of life, he turns his focus outward to recognizing the humanity of others. In learning to love his imperfect brothers and sisters, Jayber comes to a deeper understanding of God and His vision of the world. “And yet I saw them all as somehow perfected, beyond time, by one another’s love, compassion, and forgiveness, as it is said we may be perfected by grace” (221). Unconditional and sacrificial love for one another becomes the answer to most of the spiritual questions that plague him. The plight of suffering toward redemption sees its pinnacle in Jayber’s unrequited love for Mattie. Being denied the one thing he longs most for in life, but remaining devoted to her anyway, exemplifies the most profound yet painful type of love. Jayber must accept the pain and promise of “Thy will be done” and the truth that faithfulness is its own reward. A life poured out does not guarantee one will get anything in return.
If Jayber’s faith matures in the reverence of Mattie Keith Chatham, it is perfected in his intimacy and fellowship with nature: “Christ did not come to found an organized religion but came instead to found an unorganized one. He seems to have come to carry religion out of the temples into the fields and sheep pastures, onto the roadsides and the banks of rivers” (336). When Jayber listens to the wind and searches for the source of reflection on the water, nature teaches him to love not to loathe the questions. He finds peace in the wildness and mystery of God’s creation. Like the Transcendentalists, Jayber rejects institutionalized worship and prefers to commune with his Creator in the cathedral of trees and sweet songs of birds. Jayber’s life serves as an example from the author of an imperfect faith perfected by the journey of not always finding all the answers but resting in the wild mystery of God’s love and creation.
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