Jerry In John Steinbeck's A Mother In Manville

Paragraph #1 Jerry is an interesting character in the short story “A Mother in Manville.” He displays several qualities that make him an interesting character. Jerry is lonely. This is evident when Jerry takes such good care of the narrator’s dog and when Jerry spends so much time at the narrator’s cabin chopping wood. Jerry is also a hard worker. We witness this when the narrator thinks Jerry is too ‘small’ to chop wood, but after Jerry finishes the first day, he has chopped as much as a “man.” Lastly, Jerry is considerate. The author shows this when the narrator mentions that Jerry takes extra-special care to find a place inside the cabin to store some wood so that the narrator will always have dry materials with which to start a fire. This essay will show that Jerry possesses

In the short story we see this when Jerry takes extra-special care to find a place inside the cabin to store dry wood so that the narrator will always have dry materials with which to start a fire. The narrator says, “he did for me the unnecessary thing, the gracious thing, that we find done only by the great of heart. . .He found a cubbyhole beside the fireplace. . .so that I might always have dry fire material.” Jerry does something “unnecessary,” which means he does it of his own free will. He cares for someone else’s needs, even when he will not get anything out of it. He is “gracious,” almost thankful or joyful to serve someone else. He is one of the “great of heart.” In other words, he is caring, loving, willing to put others’ needs before his own selfish concerns. Furthermore, when the orphanage attendant says, “It’s not like him; he’s usually reliable,” after Jerry fails to fire the boiler, this also shows that most of the time Jerry does his duties. Although Jerry is not perfect, he does seem to possess an attitude of taking care of and thinking about others first. From these events we see that Jerry is