The Friendly Persuasion by Jessamyn West

First published: 1945

Type of work: Domestic realism

Themes: Family, religion, gender roles, emotions, war, and death

Time of work: The latter half of the nineteenth century

Recommended Ages: 13-15

Locale: The Ohio River Valley in Indiana

Principal Characters:

• Jess Birdwell, an Irish Quaker nurseryman
• Eliza Cope Birdwell, his wife, a Quaker minister
• Martha Truth (Mattie) Birdwell, their high-strung eldest daughter
• Joshua (Josh) Birdwell, their eldest son, a small, skinny boy
• Laban (Labe) Birdwell, their next eldest son, a big, easygoing boy, his mother’s favorite
• Little Jess Birdwell, a younger boy, the baby at the beginning of the novel
• Stephen Birdwell, the youngest son, whose acquisition of a non-Quaker bride disturbs his mother
• Jane Birdwell, the youngest daughter, a teenager in “The Illumination”
• Elspeth Bent, Mattie’s daughter, the perceptive observer in “The Illumination”

The Story

While in structure The Friendly Persuasion resembles a collection of fourteen short stories, each of which can be read alone, it is often treated as a novel, unified by the fact that the stories all involve the Birdwell family as well as by the repetition of major themes. At the beginning of the book, there are only four Birdwell children, all fairly young; at the end of the book, there are five grown children, the “baby” of the family is fifteen, Jess Birdwell is eighty, and his marriage to Eliza Cope Birdwell is almost sixty years old.

Although the stories, which are arranged chronologically, cover a long period of time, the author does not emphasize major changes in the rural Indiana landscape that is their backdrop. Certainly the Birdwells are not immune to outside influences. One of the episodes, “The Battle of Finney’s Ford,” describes the effects of the Civil War on the peaceful Ohio River Valley where the family lives, and the last two chapters deal with the coming of gas lights and the installation of a bathtub in the farmhouse. The real action, however, is internal; in each episode, there is a problem that the Birdwells perceive as spiritual, and, at the end of each episode, that problem is resolved.

As a Quaker minister Eliza is expected to be a model of decorum, but she is also human. In “Music on the Muscatuck,” she compromises, so that the music-lover Jess can have his organ. In “The Pacing Goose,” she resolutely takes a neighbor to court in order to recover her pet goose, which she recognizes by its distinctive walk.

As the children grow older, they, too, learn that living a good life involves more than simply obeying a few rules. In “Shivaree Before Breakfast,” thirteen-year-old Joshua Birdwell and ten-year-old Laban Birdwell discover the meaning of loneliness from an old man whom they had mocked. When the older boys and girls become young adults, their emotions and their decisions are more difficult to handle. In “Lead Her Like a Pigeon,” Martha Truth (Mattie) Birdwell first recognizes her sexual needs, and, in “The Buried Leaf,” she comes to realize that she can find strength in the knowledge of her heritage; similarly, in “The Battle of Finney’s Ford,” Josh and Labe must come to understand their responses to war.

Some of the later chapters of The Friendly Persuasion are humorous, such as the account of Jess’s acquisition of a racehorse in “A Likely Exchange” and “First Day Finish” and of a bathroom, constructed by a carpenter who loathes baths, in “Yes, We’ll Gather at the River.” Yet some of those chapters are poignant; for example, in “The Meeting House,” Jess, suddenly aware of his own mortality, sets out to his childhood church, and in “The Vase,” the relationship between Eliza’s need for beauty and her grief over the death of a child is described.

The final chapters indicate that, even in their later years, Jess and Eliza must struggle to understand the relationship between their principles and their everyday problems—“Pictures from a Clapboard House” reveals Eliza’s hostile reaction when her son Stephen Birdwell marries outside the faith, and “Homer and the Lilies” expresses Jess’s regret over his own lack of charity. At the end of the book, it is clear that as long as human beings are alive, they must continue to seek understanding and to pray for aid in living the lives that God and their consciences dictate.

Context

Although she is best known for The Friendly Persuasion and for its sequel, Except for Me and Thee: A Companion to “The Friendly Persuasion” (1969), Jessamyn West also won acclaim for a number of novels, some of which, such as the Birdwell books, were set in nineteenth century Indiana and some of which, such as Cress Delahanty (1953) and South of the Angels (1960), were set in Southern California, the scene of many of West’s short stories. Because its protagonist is a highly original, independent girl, somewhat like Mattie in The Friendly Persuasion, Cress Delahanty has a particular appeal for most readers.

Critics generally applaud West’s skill in writing about young adults, pointing out that she treats them and their problems seriously. To West, a moral issue is of major consequence, whether it troubles a person of eighteen or of eighty. They also praise her ability to create complex and memorable young characters, comparing the teenage Birdwells and the formidable Cress Delahanty to Huck Finn in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) and Holden Caulfield in J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (1951).

Perhaps West’s greatest achievement, however, is thematic. With profound insight and with total honesty, she examines the minds and the hearts of her characters, making it clear that everyone, no matter how old or how young, has been placed on this earth for the purpose of spiritual tutelage. As long as young people search for meaning in life, they will be attracted to books such as West’s, which place their age-old problems in the context of a universal spiritual pilgrimage.

Sources for Further Study

Farmer, Ann Dahlstrom, and Philip M. O’Brien. Jessamyn West: A Descriptive and Annotated Bibliography. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1998. Commentary on the works as well as a thorough bibliography that includes the date and journal in which each of the stories was first published, from 1940 through 1945.

Kibler, James E., Jr., ed. American Novelists Since World War II. Vol. 6 in Dictionary of Literary Biography. Detroit, Mich.: Gale Group, 1980. The substantial reference entry on Jessamyn West provides basic information about her life and works, plus some commentary on the works.

Shivers, Alfred F. Jessamyn West. Rev. ed. New York: Twayne, 1992. Discussion of the author’s life and works, with extensive commentary on The Friendly Persuasion. Includes details not otherwise widely available.