Jennie Gerhardt [Paperback]

Theodore Dreiser (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 31, 2008

JENNIE GERHARDT CHAPTER I 0 NE morning, in the fall of 1880, a middle-aged woman, accompanied by a young girl of eighteen, presented herself at the clerks desk of the principal hotel in Columbus, Ohio, and made inquiry as to whether there was anything about the place that she could do. She was of a helpless, fleshy build, with a frank, open countenance and an innocent, diffident manner. Her eyes were large and patient, and in them dwelt such a shadow of distress as only those who have looked sympathetically into the countenances of the distraught and helpless poor know anything about. Any one could see where the daughter behind her got the timidity and shamefacedness which now caused her to stand back and look indifferently away. She was a product of the fancy, the feeling, the innate affection of the untutored but poetic mind of her mother combined with the gravity and poise which were characteristic of her father. Poverty was driving them. Together they presented so appealing a picture of honest necessity that even the clerk was affected. What is it you would like to do he said. Maybe you have some cleaning or scrubbing, she replied, timidly. I could wash the floors. The daughter, hearing the statement, turned uneasily, not because it irritated her to work, but because she I J E N N I E GERHARDT hated people to guess at the poverty that made it necessary. The clerk, manlike, was affected by the evidence of beauty in distress. The innocent helplessness of the daughter made their lot seem hard indeed. Wait a moment, he said and, stepping into a back office, he called the head housekeeper. There was work to be done. The main staircase and parlor hall were unswept because of the absence of the regular scrub-woman. Is that her daughter with her asked the house keeper, who could see them from where she was standing. Yes, I believe so. She might come this afternoon if she wants to. The girl helps her, I suppose You go see the housekeeper, said the clerk, pleasantly, as he came back to the desk. Right through there -pointing to a near-by door. Shell arrange with you about it. A succession of misfortunes, of which this little scene might have been called the tragic culmination, had taken place in the life and family of William Gerhardt, a glass-blower by trade. Having suffered the reverses so common in the lower walks of life, this man was forced to see his wife, his six children, and himself dependent for the necessaries of life upon whatever windfall of fortune the morning of each recurring day might bring. He himself was sick in bed. His oldest boy, Sebastian, or Bass, as his associates transformed it, worked as an apprentice to a local freight-car builder, but received only four dollars a week. Genevieve, the oldest of the girls, was past eighteen, but had not as yet been trained to any special work. The other children, George, aged fourteen Martha, twelve William ten, and Veronica, eight, were too young to do anything, and only made the problem of existence the more complicated. Their one mainstay was the home, which, bamng a sixhundred-dollar mortgage, the father owned. H e had 2 J E N N I E GERHARDT borrowed this money at a time when, having saved enough to buy the house, he desired to add three rooms and a porch, and so make it large enough for them to live in. A few years were still to run on the mortgage, but times had been so bad that he had been forced to use up not only the little he had saved to pay off the principal, but the annual interest also...

Editorial Reviews

Review

Novel by Theodore Dreiser, published in 1911. It exemplifies the naturalism of which Dreiser was a proponent, telling the unhappy story of a working-class woman who accepts all the adversity life visits on her and becomes the mistress of two wealthy and powerful men in order to help her impoverished family. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Publisher

James L. W. West III is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English at Penn State University. He is the author of many books, including American Authors and the Literary Marketplace since 1900, an expansion of his 1983 Rosenbach Lectures at the University of Pennsylvania, and The Making of This Side of Paradise, both available from the University of Pennsylvania Press. His most recent books are William Styron: A Life (1998) and The Perfect Hour: The Romance of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ginevra King (2005). --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Read Books (January 31, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1408634198
• ISBN-13: 978-1408634196
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 4.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,370,365 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Jennie Has-hardt, July 11, 2003

By 

Jana (Music City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jennie Gerhardt (The University of Pennsylvania Dreiser Edition) (Paperback)

Truly, Jenny Gerhardt has a lot of heart.

Though she makes some bad decisions and often lacks the confindence that could have reinvented her in the magnified binocular-eyes of society, Dreiser's love for the character shines and we, the readers, grow to love her also. Several glimmers of why Dreiser is the transcendent novelist that he is peek out from the fast moving story of Jennie Gerhardt.

"She was not, like so many, endeavoring to put the ocean into a tea-cup or to tie up the shifting universe in a mess of strings called law."

"The loveliness of seventeen is centuries old. That is why passion is almost sad."

"So this little household drifted along quietly and dreamily indeed, but always with the undercurrent of feeling which ran so still because it was so deep."

I admit to you, I have never been very interested by the sometimes dry prose offered in the writing of earlier time periods. But Dreiser seems to me a rare gem in the world of early 20th century fiction.

However, the one reason I am writing a 4 star review is because of the ending of this novel. After several mini-climaxes, the book ends. --just like that. With a grim display of "if only". And although most, if not all of us, identify with that theme, I felt like I MUST have read 366 pages for something other than that.

However, I would still recommend it. It is a delicate work of art whose power and beauty cannot be denied.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Honest, truthful and rewarding, May 25, 2004

By 

B. Gordon (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Jennie Gerhardt (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

This was the first novel I ever read by Theodore Dreiser. The reason why I selected it was because in the film, American Splendor, Harvey Pekar mentions the novel and he's shown finishing it in the film. I wanted to know and feel what Mr. Pekar felt. And I believe I did. The tragedy of Jennie Gerhardt's life resonated with me. I was anguished over Jenny's loneliness and the fact that Lester could never make up his mind to marry her. I cried. Dreiser's observation of turn of the century high society and their view of the poor as pariahs still seems relevant today. We still live in a time of social and financial inequality.

Dreiser's writing style is definitely not modern. And his phrasing is not structured in the active voice. It's more long-winded. You need to enjoy his descriptions and his philosophical speculations that do make the novel more meaningful. You can't take the social critic out of Dreiser. If you can make time in your life to sit down and read this novel, you will come away having been moved by Dreiser's heartfelt portrayal of the human condition. May each and everyone one of you be as lucky to love as deeply as Jennie did.

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A girl punished for daring to love men above her class., June 5, 1999

By 

William A. Marsh (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Jennie Gerhardt (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

It seems each time I finish one of Dresier's works I think it is my favorite. Such is the case with Jennie Gerhardt, at least until my next Dresier. This heart-wrenching saga takes the reader through Jennie's life from cleaning houses with her mother, bearing a child by a US Senator and living and loving a man beyond her society class. Lester (the man she loves after the Senator), for his part, is unwilling to marry Jennie and is cut-off from the family and it's millions for loving someone "below" his class in society. Jennie remains true to herself, following her heart and the dicates of a harsh scoiety. She makes amendes with her father and is the only child to nurture him through his final days and death. She takes her daughter away from Chicago and leaves Lester so he can reclaim his family fortune. Her daughter dies, leaving her alone but the strength of Jennie's character comes through when she adopts orphans, for if she isn't nurturing she isn't living. Dreiser drives home his theme of fate and how some can dictate it while others are a slave to it. But even this distinction isn't black and white. Lester seems not to care what fate has in store for him until he takes it into his onw hands and marries the society girl he arguably should have married before he hooked up with Jennie. Alas, Jennie never mastered her fate. She was punished for loving two men from the upper-crust of scoiety instead of taking the crusts that high-living classes would toss her.