Part One, Chapter 04

Literary Fiction

Jenny

by Sigrid UNDSET (1882 - 1949)

Jenny Winge is a Norwegian expatriate studying art in Rome, part of a Bohemian group of friends who explore the ancient City in an intoxicating passion for Beauty. Yearning for an immortal Love, she allows herself to fall into less-than-ideal romantic relationships and then has to struggle with all her might to recover her independence. Constantly resisting conformity, she demands absolute freedom for herself while always being tempted to fall back into the comfortable ruts of provincial domesticity. A profound psychological study of the social Outsider, the person who “sees through” the shallow façades of human social convention, this novel might also be seen as an early fictional exploration of the existentialist insistence on individual choice in all its terrifying responsibility. Nobel laureate Sigrid Undset, most famous for her later epic “Kristin Lavransdatter,” published this dark, remarkable, psychologically-dense novel in 1911, when the author was the same age as her protagonist and experiencing many of the same existential choices. ( Expatriate)

Listen next episodes of Jenny:
Part One, Chapter 05 , Part One, Chapter 06 , Part One, Chapter 07 , Part One, Chapter 08 , Part One, Chapter 09 , Part One, Chapter 10 , Part One, Chapter 11 , Part Three, Chapter 01 , Part Three, Chapter 02 , Part Three, Chapter 03 , Part Three, Chapter 04 , Part Three, Chapter 05 , Part Three, Chapter 06 , Part Three, Chapter 07 , Part Three, Chapter 08 , Part Three, Chapter 09 , Part Three, Chapter 10 , Part Three, Chapter 11 , Part Three, Chapter 12 , Part Two, Chapter 01 , Part Two, Chapter 02 , Part Two, Chapter 03 , Part Two, Chapter 04 , Part Two, Chapter 05 , Part Two, Chapter 06 , Part Two, Chapter 07 , Part Two, Chapter 08 , Part Two, Chapter 09 , Part Two, Chapter 10