The Jolly Corner (Themes)

Themes

Memory and Reminiscence

Spencer Brydon’s return to New York, his friendship with Alice Staverton, and his attraction to the house of his youth illustrate his overwhelming need to analyze his past. He needs to reflect on past events in order to understand who he is now. In particular, Spencer needs to come to terms with what he could have been had he remained in New York; in that way he can accept himself and move on with his life.

Alienation and Loneliness

When Spencer left New York as a young man, he was rejecting a life in business and embracing a career in art. Upon his return, he discovers the full implications of his decision. He has he lost his family; also, New York City has irrevocably changed to the point where he hardly recognizes it. In some ways, Spencer’s experience is universal: in an attempt to recapture the past, he discovers that the world he remembers does not exist anymore. As a result, he feels alienated, cut off from his past and his own identity.

The American Dream

After living abroad for so many years, Spencer is able to view the American Dream as an outside observer. As a child, Spencer grew up in a wealthy, privileged household. As an adult, Spencer has continued to live comfortably on inherited wealth. When he returns to New York, he is disgusted by the ambitious and materialistic nature of the American businessman. From his privileged position, he views the capitalistic system as one that robs its citizens of integrity and culture.

Art and Money

Spencer rejects a career in business and escapes by pursuing a career in art in Europe. Yet while Spencer vilifies the American scene as materialistic and obsessed with money, he continues to live off the profits of that world. The rents from his properties make it possible for him to travel without financial restriction and to live abroad without having to work. The story implies that the pursuit of art is inextricably linked with money; to deny the connection is hypocritical.

Gender Roles

Spencer’s rejection of a business career raises questions about what it means to be a powerful man in the early twentieth century. When he leaves New York City, he seems to have left behind the opportunity to marry and have a family as well as a thriving business career. By linking Spencer’s rejection of business to his absence of family, the story implies that personal choices are related to public pressures. In a sense, Spencer’s pursuit of art is a protest against one-dimensional concepts of masculinity — concepts that relate economic power to one’s worth as a man.

Alice also raises questions about how women are supposed to live their lives. While she stays in Manhattan her entire life, she never marries. The reader learns little about her life apart from her relationship to Spencer. Is her final embrace of Spencer a strong assertion of her will or a late and failed capitulation to the stereotypic woman’s role of passive and dutiful wife?

Transformation and Change

The story hinges on Spencer confronting his alter ego. The story’s conclusion suggests Spencer and Alice will end up together and that Spencer’s wandering has ended. But what has Spencer learned? It is an open question whether Spencer has accepted his past and truly been transformed.

Media Adaptations

• The Jolly Corner was made into a short movie in 1977. It was directed by Arthur Barron and starred Salome Jens as Spencer Brydon. The video is distributed by Monterry Home Video.