VIII explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Artistic Identity and Work

  Jenny's development as an artist, her portrait of Kalfatrus, and her longing to grasp beauty.

• Loneliness and Isolation

  Jenny's feelings of forlornness after her mother's remarriage and her sense of being an outsider.

• Love and Self-Deception

  Jenny's internal conflict about love, her first kiss, and her desire for a pure, consuming love.

Characters to notice

• Jenny Winge

  Reflects on her childhood, her stepfather's death, and her longing for love and connection.

• Winge

  Jenny's mother, who remarried and had more children, leaving Jenny feeling forlorn.

• Nils Berner

  Jenny's half-brother, called Kalfatrus, with whom she shares a close bond and rambles in Nordmarken.

• Gunnar Heggen

  Mentioned as someone who scolded Jenny for not exhibiting her portrait of Kalfatrus.

• Cesca Jahrman

  Contrasted with Jenny in terms of their attitudes towards love and physical intimacy.

Key passages

• “She had never considered the Berner children as her sisters; they were exactly like their father.”

  Jenny did not view the Berner children as her siblings, seeing them as resembling their father.

  Highlights Jenny's emotional distance from her half-siblings.

• “Her portrait of Kalfatrus was the first of her paintings to please her; it was really good.”

  The portrait of Kalfatrus was the first painting Jenny was satisfied with, and it was genuinely good.

  Shows Jenny's artistic achievement and her bond with Nils.

• “She was twenty-eight, and she would not deny to herself that she longed to love and to be loved by a man, to nestle in his arms, young, healthy, and good to look upon as she was.”

  At twenty-eight, Jenny admitted her desire for love and physical affection, feeling young and healthy.

  Reveals Jenny's yearning for intimacy and her self-awareness.