57 pages • 1 hour read
Jayber Crow
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BetaPart 1, Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary: “The Great World"
J. leaves Pigeonville in 1935 and decides to try his luck in Lexington. He leaves on foot with all his belongings in a box. A farmer named Sam Hanks gives him a ride. J. realizes he knows Sam is from Goforth and works in Port William. Sam used to patronize Othy’s shop. J. does not reveal his identity to Sam, though it is clear Sam knows him. J. respects Sam because he is proud and independent. J. thinks about John T. McCallum, the only man with whom Sam came into conflict. They disagreed over politics, and both later became patrons of J. Sam asks J. about his family and his plans in Lexington. J. fibs, telling him his mother is sick and he is the only child. Sam gives him advice about where to look for work and slips him a five-dollar bill as J. is leaving. J. feels guilty for receiving money by way of a lie. He goes to the racetrack where Sam said he could find work. J. decides to live on his earnings alone and never touch his savings unless it is an emergency. J. is enchanted by the expensive horses at the track and the opulence of the sport in such desperate times. He earns money doing odd jobs around the track, sleeps in the haylofts, and bathes in public restrooms. J. keeps his savings in his jacket pockets. J. needs a haircut, so he walks into town to see the local barber, Skinner Hawes. The barber tells him that business is down because the other barber died, and he has alcoholism. J. offers to help and shows him his barbering skills by cutting the man’s hair and shaving his face. Skinner gives him a job.
J. begins work immediately by cleaning the shop. For a while, he sleeps there but soon finds a room to rent. He works on advertising for the shop to regain lost business. Customers begin to trickle back in, and J. enjoys listening to their conversations. Now that he does not have to worry as much about money and is free from the moral constraints of the orphanage and college, J. admits to indulging his physical desires a bit from time to time. “I didn’t settle on any final terms with the forbidden. I just floated in and floated out. I was a cut-rate prodigal” (84). J. takes courses at the local college at the request of Skinner. He only wants to take literature courses, though he is still not a good student. J. continues to enjoy reading during his spare time, but he worries he is not making the most of his potential and begins to feel lonely. “What I had thought was the bottom kept getting lower in little jerks. When I cried it was getting harder to stop” (88). J. develops depression. He feels he has become disconnected from his past. Deciding not to re-enroll in classes, he packs his belongings and leaves for Louisville. J. from the present thinks about all the ways his life could have gone and says he was called to be a barber. He feels his life has been blessed.
Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary: “The Gathering Waters”
J. begins his journey on January 22 as a historic flood hits the area. Some roads are closed, and he accepts a few rides along the way. As he catches his first glimpse of the swollen Kentucky River, he is not frightened but excited knowing he is closer to home. “As I imagined the water rising in the river valley, I seemed to feel it rising in me. That feeling was my old life coming back to me” (93). J. realizes he must cross the St. Clair Street Bridge, but it is blocked by a policeman. He tells the policeman he is trying to get home to his family and the officer lets him pass. As he crosses, he pauses for a moment in awe of the apocalyptic look of the rising, swirling water, reminding him of the chaos before creation. Soaked and without food, he is forced to spend the night in a shelter with many refugees driven from their homes. He feels a camaraderie with the people there and the scene gives him a vision of his place in the world. “I could see that I lived in the created world, and it was still being created” (99). Following the river, he continues toward Port William, sleeping in barns and eating in stores. As J. gets closer to home, he worries it will be changed. J. comes to a familiar farmhouse, and he suddenly knows where he is. The house used to be Dark Tom’s but is now owned by another family. J. spends the night at the home and washes before continuing. He feeds the family’s chickens as a thank you even though no one is home. Further along the way, a man is fishing in the river. J. recognizes him as Burley Coulter, a local in his forties who served in World War I. J. introduces himself as Jonah Crow, and Burley remembers his aunt and uncle. Burley offers to take him to Katy’s Branch. Jonah tells him he is looking for work as a barber, and Burley tells him he is in luck because Port William needs a barber. The current barber quit because he was not making enough money. Burley agrees to take Jonah to see the shop that is for sale.
Part 1, Chapter 9 Summary: “Barber Horsefield’s Successor”
Jonah learned later that Burley and his friend Loyd Thigpen had been fishing to help those affected by the flood. He says as the town barber, he learns a lot of information just in bits and pieces: “But it’s a fact that knowledge comes to barbers, just as stray cats come to milking barns” (110). Burley takes Jonah to his home where his mother Zelma cooks them a meal. Zelma knew Jonah’s aunt and uncle. After they eat, Burley leads him on foot to town to see the barbershop. It is a simple brick building with a room above, but the shop has a nice barber chair. Jonah wants to buy it immediately and thinks Burley owns it.
The building is owned by the bank because Barber Horsefield did not pay his note, and they must visit Mat Feltner from the board. Mat invites them in, and Burley relates to him Jonah’s history and intentions to become the town barber. Mat sees Jonah’s singleness and experience as assets and offers him the shop for 300 dollars requiring one third as a down payment. Jonah accepts though it costs him all his hard-earned savings. The men treat him with respect as he digs his money from the inside of his coat. Jonah spends his first night back in Port William in his shop sleeping in the barber chair. Mr. Feltner and Burley help him find supplies and lend him enough to get his start. Jasper Lathrop, the store owner, gives him a cigar box for his money. Customers begin to come in as people remember him from Squires Landing. One day Sam Hanks comes in for a haircut. Sam argues with John T. McCallum over the chance of it flooding again. When they are alone, Jonah confesses to him that he lied the day Sam gave him a ride and gives him the five-dollar bill. Sam denies ever having given him a ride and returns the money.
Part 1, Chapters 7-9 Analysis
Once J. sheds the burden of becoming a preacher and experiences life in the city of Lexington, he realizes what an ill-fitting yoke the pastoral role would have been for him. He enjoys his freedom and the adventure of living day to day without any responsibilities except keeping himself fed and finding a place to sleep each night. The only thought J. gives to the future is to save as much money as he can, which is a decision that will come to be valuable soon. However, the bliss of his newfound freedom is brief as J. is plagued with self-doubt and the fear he is wasting his life. He cannot shake the nagging sense that he is supposed to be making something of himself due to his humble origins. The way of the world is progress, always moving forward and upward. Once he stumbles on the barbershop job, J. has a revelation. His calling is to become a barber. The signs are undeniable. The author settles the questions in J.’s mind about destiny and calling in these chapters. By releasing J.’s character from the fear of failure, he portrays the value of a simple life not marked by achievements or accolades but through the small victory of knowing oneself and living a life of truth and simplicity.
J.’s coming-of-age journey reaches a climactic moment in his Odyssey-like trek back home to Port William. The author incorporates the historical event of the Great Flood of 1937, which submerged 70% of Louisville and is considered one of the worst floods in history. The crossing of the bridge serves as a symbolic moment in J.’s journey. He sees the Creator and his value in creation in the face of the flood waters. J. may not have received the answers to his spiritual questions through prayer, but in the raging torrent, he recognizes divinity and the power it has to direct his path. J.’s journey through the floodwaters hearkens to a character in the Bible who shares his name. Like Jonah was submerged in the whale’s belly underwater, J. is submerged in the floodwaters and is baptized and resurrected anew in Port William. The author revisits the idea of nature as a place of spiritual connection for the narrator. The kinship J. feels with the refugees gives him a foretaste of what it is like to be connected to other humans through a common experience. Though the building is sheltering displaced persons from a natural disaster, it is the beginning of healing for J. and opens his eyes to the need for community.
Some individuals may find freedom in living a life of anonymity, but J. has lived the last decade of his life without an identity or even a full first name. This sends him into a depression precipitating his decision to move back home. The closer he gets to Port William, the more he begins to feel like himself. Once he settles his identity with God, he begins to build an identity as part of the community. After his fortuitous meeting with Burley, he regains his first name of Jonah, a job, and a home in the barbershop. He gains a found family in the Coulters and Feltners and other residents of Port William. Jonah subverts the societal norm that a person must leave home to find oneself. Instead, Jonah finds his calling in returning home and putting down roots in his neighborhood.
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