Molly Haskell has brought up some very interesting ideas in her Essay “From Reverence to Rape, Female Stars of the 1940’s.” I wanted to apply some of her ideas about female movie stars and gender roles to Portrait of Jenny.  The actress Jennifer Jones who plays Jennie Appleton inspires an artist to greatness and the two fall in love with each other. Oddly similar is the story of how David O. Selznick fell in love with Jennifer Jones. Haskell speaks of two kinds of leading ladies, super women and super females. Jennifer Jones strikes me as a super female, using her charm to woo David O. Selznick’s, decisively landing her the lead in Portrait of Jennie. Just like that, the movie has come alive, no longer is it just a movie but a living, breathing, redundancy. I don’t mean to say that her love for Selznick wasn’t genuine, but the fact remains that her beauty and persona persuaded Selznick to cast her as Jennie, which makes Jenny a super female according to Haskell.  I read Jennifer Jones’ biography and it said her roles consisted of innocent adolescents and passionate lovers, roles that according to Haskell theory on super females “plays on her assets”. (624)  I wonder if Jennifer’s identity as a super female ever spilled into her portrayal of Jennie.  Jennie is both the innocent adolescent and the passionate lover in Portrait of Jennie, but I believe that Jennie Appleton is too aimless to have a motive. There is nothing that she needs from Eben; it’s more like Eben needs her.  That tangent led me to wonder about Jennie and Eben’s relationship. Haskell references Adam’s Rib a feminist film from 1949 to make a point about relationships. “The film brilliantly counterpoints and reconciles two basic assumptions : (1) that there are certain “male qualities—stability, stoicism, fairness, dullness—possessed by Tracy, [the man] and that there are certain “female qualities— volatility, brilliance, intuition, duplicity—possessed by Hepburn; and  (2) that each can, and must, exchange these qualities like trading cards.” (632) 

I really liked this because it summed up what Eben and Jennie’s relationship was.  Throughout the film and the novel, Jennie says that Eben must wait for her just as she has waited for him through time.  This tradeoff is symbolized in the scarf that is traded between them. The scarf represents the responsibility of the two to compromise and take turns with responsibility. In other words it represents Joseph waiting and Jennie’s returning. Both Jennie and Eben have to exchange qualities like trading cards which makes both of them mix and matched decks. “Each can do everything the other can do, just where, we begin to wonder, are the boundaries between male and female? The question mark is established most pointedly and uncomfortable when … the faces of Holliday and Ewell are transposed, each becoming the other.” (632)  

This image of two becoming one is most prominent in the scene where Eben finishes the portrait, in what Dr. Campbell believes to be the climax of the film. Jennie and Eben’s faces come together several times during that scene, as they both admire the portrait. The light seems to shine just as wide as their faces and together they view the product of their relationship, which is the painting.  The combination of their souls is also seen in the painting itself. Muse and artist come together to create something unique and new.  You could say that the painting is their child.  And so these two souls come together because they need each other. Without the other, they are both lost.  Through out the film, Eben feels lost and Jennie says at one point  

“Oh no—don’t ever say that, not ever again. And besides, you weren’t lost—you were h  ere, and here isn’t lost. It can’t be; it mustn’t be. I couldn’t bear it. “And turning to me almost piteously, she added, “We can’t both of us be lost.” (48 ) The reason they feel lost is because according to Haskell “Their love is the admission of their incompleteness, of their need and willingness to listen to each other.” (632) I feel that Jennie’s statement “We can’t both of us be lost”  means that as soul-mates there is no being lost because they are together. There is no lost when you’ve found your soul-mate because time and space cannot interfere with their love because their love is timeless. Seasons and days are another motif for this theme that time only exists when you are “lost” or without your soul-mate. This explains so many of the peculiarities in the novel and the film such as Jennie’s rapid aging, the motif of time in seasons which is best illustrated in this quote “it occurred to me to ask myself why the sun should rise each  morning on a new day instead of upon the old day over again” (68 ). This revelation that their love is timeless is reached at one of the novel’s climax when Eben is holding onto Jennie during the storm and he says 

 “Yes, Jennie…We’re together now.”And she says “there’s only one love… nothing can change it. It’s still all right, darling, whatever happens, because we’ll always be together…somewhere…”“I know” says Eben.  Their love for each other transcends time. Which brings us to the question of why can’t spend their lives together? 

            Nathan tears the two apart to illustrate his point that love is timeless. If Eben and Jennie stay together and live their lives together then it means that at some point they have to die. Because love is timeless and as infinite as “the same day repeating itself” love cannot die. Despite their mortality, Eben and Jennie’s love will live forever through the portrait, their child.  That’s why they cannot spend their mortal life together, which in itself is as cruel as the distance between them. Haskell has this to say of the couple in The Marrying Kind “Separately, they are two more swallowers of the American myth, two more victims of its fraudulence: but together, with their children, they add up to something full and affirmative.” (630) this means in Portrait of Jennie, Eben and Jennie only add up to something when the painting is created and when they are together. This goes back to the theme of soul-mates, muse and artist and the creator and created. Their lives are only meaningful in the context of their combination and creation. Their relationship has created something timeless and I feel that if Haskell had a say in why Jennie is killed it would be for that reason.              The notion that love is timeless is the entrance to a new rabbit hole. If love is timeless, as Jennie is, then there is no future or past, just present. This means that we already know what is going to happen to us. Jennie says to Eben in that climatic scene in the film, specifically in Eben’s apartment where she feels “sad about things that that are going to happen” and she says “we know it but we’re afraid to admit it to ourselves.”  This oomniscient point of view explains Jennie’s strong sense of foreboding when looking at pictures of the lighthouse. It also explains how Eben was able to find her at that light house and how she knew to go there to see him. This kind of intelligence, predicting the future, is evidence of love’s triumph over time. My head’s spinning and so I’d like to backtrack a little bit and talk about the creator and the created. 

            The theory that Jennie is just Eben’s imagination is an interesting notion. Personally I feel that he couldn’t create something like that.  If Eben could create someone like Jennie, then he shouldn’t have any problem painting something that beautiful without Jennie. Of course the argument could be made that of course Eben can create something beautiful, he created Jennie, who inspired him to create other beautiful things. Jennie even says that in those exact words. I’d like to take some time now to analyze the climatic scene that I’ve referenced above so many times. The scene visually begins with a silhouette of Eben while Jennie is posing and to me this represents their roles as artist and art. You can see Eben’s brush strokes, but his head is shadowed so you cannot see what he is thinking or feeling. On top of that he is in shadow because he doesn’t matter right now; all that matters is his art. The reason is because he derives all meaning in his life from his art and this scene represents his place in the film, only his hand is in light, only his gift to create art is important at this moment.  It’s at this point that Jennie comes to the realization that she is beyond time and that she already knows what is going to happen, but tells herself she’s being silly, She says that were afraid to admit it to ourselves.  She says that because admitting it to ourselves put us beyond time and no one can do that without a soul-mate and she isn’t sure yet whether or not Eben is her soul-mate. Admitting to herself that she knows what is going to happen also puts her dangerously close to going up in a “blaze of unbearable vision” (68) 

When she passes out, the music stops which gives the eerie feeling that she has died. When Eben wakes her up and the music picks up again and it’s a metaphor for the life that Eben breathes into her as the creator. His hands shake the life into her as she inhales at his touch. It’s in this moment that they transcend time in the declaration of where they are when Eben says “We’re together.” Outside of time and space, we’re together, two soul-mates.  He then leads her to the painting they cross through shadow to the light the painting sheds. I’ve already mentioned the symbolism of the painting, as the physical embodiment of their love so I won’t dwell on that, but I want to re-emphasize the blending of their souls, in the proximity of their faces. After the line “If they do, it won’t be my work they come to see, it’ll be you” and he hugs her from behind, she grabs her stomach, much like a pregnant woman would caress her womb. I feel this placement of her hands and the stance of Eben behind her is very family oriented. It feels like a very standard, mother-to-be photograph. When they finally sign the painting, they do it together; it feels like they’re signing the name on a birth certificate. 

            After the birth of what gives both of them meaning, Jennie is drawn away to pictures of the lighthouse. This foreshadows the break to their relationship that Jennie will be taken away prematurely.  While viewing the landscapes of the lighthouse she says “Every time I see them my heart seems to stop.” She knows she is going to die; she just refuses to admit it to herself. In the theme of living in the present she changes the subject to their time together. The timelessness of their love is evident when she says “Oh Eben I feel as if we’ve been spending our whole lives together.”  This scene strikes me as fascinating because who’s supporting who in this shot? Is Eben holding Jennie up from falling, or is Jennie propping Eben up? I believe that it’s a combination of the two and that Haskell would agree on that. Their dual support hug is a symbol for the “admission of their incompleteness, of their need and willingness to listen to each other.” (632)  their hug is a “certification—-indeed, the celebration —of that compromise. (632) this shot is the culmination of their finding each other. It’s the epiphany of finding their soul-mate.             Finally now that they’ve found each other, they have to lose each other. The wind picks up now and signals her time to leave, much like the final wave in the storm sequence. This also raises the Man Vs Nature theme which you could even extend to Man vs. God. Eben shuts the window, trying to buy more time, but Jennie has already started walking away which foreshadows the storm sequence. Lastly she finds the scarf and as she’s examining it I noticed that the lights around her face dim, to cover more and more of her face in shadow, until finally she lifts the scarf up and disappears behind it. I need to address the adaptation of the book to the screen and there were a couple things I wanted to say. First of all, I feel glad that they downplayed Mrs. Jekes because I feel that she was just another vehicle to get between Jennie and Eben. I liked parts of the film better than I liked the book too because it felt more natural.  

Before I comment on other blogs there was one more thing I wanted to say. In the film Mack plays a song Yonder the lyrics in the song talk about the memory of a true love that travels across time long ago. It just backs up the idea that love is timeless.  I also just really liked the song and wanted to incorporate some media into this “paper” because I don’t often get a chance to do so and I want to make the most of it.             I thought Mary’s blog was an interesting idea because if Spinney did turn out to be Jennie, then where would that leave Eben? I mean he would be reunited with his soul-mate but to what end? So he can watch her grow old and die? No, I firmly believe that Spinney and Jennie are two entirely different characters, but I do believe they serve the same purpose which is to give Eben the opportunity to create. 

            In Royale with Cheese, this blog brings up the topic of seeing the portrait before it’s finished. This blog felt like it ruined the anticipation of seeing the actually portrait later, but it didn’t strike me that way. I think we see the portrait before it’s done because we see Jennie and Eben before they’re sure of their love. I think the progression of the painting is a mirror for the progression of the novel. Sure the painting is finished before the novel ends, but that’s to show that the painting will live on like their love.             I really liked Beth’s blog because it raised the point of what humans are really like. It’d be nice to believe in this fairy tale love and to think that if Jennie lived she and Eben would live happily ever after. But then that’s not really human. To be human is to be mortal, to fade with the coming of a new generation, it’s to be weak and eventually die.  

This brings me to Serena’s blog. I’ve got to applaud her brutally honest perception of Eben and Jennie. She raises valid points, like why Jennie and Eben assume they’re in love? What do they have in common? I just accepted that they were in love and never questioned it. Eben brings up our ignorance and I think you need it for this life. I never questioned their love for the same reason men dedicate themselves to god. You’ve got to have faith. You can’t believe in the concept of a soul-mate without having faith or believing in fate. My roommate said it quite frankly, what are the odds that I’d find my soul mate in the infinite number of people who lived, are living and will live? The answer is you’ve got to have faith. It’s not a great answer, but it’s the best we have to offer. I’ve got a passage that Serena might like to disembowel the way she did to that class lecture. “What is it which makes a man and a woman know that they, of all other men and women in the world, belong to each other? Is it no more than chance and meeting? No more than being alive together in the world at the same time? Is it only a curve of the throat, a line of the chin, the way the eyes are set, a way of speaking? Or is it something deeper and stranger, something beyond meeting, something beyond chance and fortune? Are there others, in other times of the world, whom we would have loved, who would have loved us? Is there, perhaps, one soul among all others—among all who have lived, the endless generations, from world’s end to world’s end—who must love us or die? And whom we must love, in turn—whom we must seek all our lives long—headlong and homesick—until the end?” (68 ) 

I have one more passage to type out to help shed some light on our mortal dilemma.  “How stupid of us. Yet we are created stupid—innocent and ignorant; and it is this ignorance alone which makes it possible for us to live on this earth, in comfort, among the mysteries. Since we do not know, and cannot guess, we need not bother our heads too much to understand. It is innocence which wakes us each morning to a new day, a fresh day, another day in a long chain of days; it is ignorance which makes each of our acts appear to be a new one, and the result of an exercise of will. Without such ignorance, we should perish of terror, frozen and immobile; or, like the old saints who learned the true name of God, go up in a blaze of unbearable vision.” (68 ) Perhaps Serena is right and that Eben and Jennie do not love each other. What does that say about love? It would mean there is no such thing as a soul mate, and if there is no soul mate, maybe there are no souls. If there are no souls, there might be no god. If there isn’t a god, then why are we here? You see love gives us meaning, and soul mates justify god. Faith is what binds us to love and god or rather faith and ignorance are what bind us to love and god.