Jennie Dixianna or the Spin of Death

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Jennie for the death of her mother. Sister even taught Jennie the bible verse that almost saved her mother saying, “you know this, you can do anything child” (40). Whenever asked Jennie would tell people that “she’d been born in a swamp and had walked out of water, wholly made, draped in moss. I am an American Venus, delivered from the gods,” (27). She describes it like is not human and is something from the Gods. After she performs The Spin of Death, Jennie would tell the circus people that “[she] can stop her own blood” and some would believe her thinking “no mortal could withstand so much pain” (28). Whenever she says this, it reminds her of the bible verse that almost saved her mother, but now she knows that it wouldn’t have worked. Everyone believes her except for Wallace Porter.

Jennie will use her new found teachings to manipulate Wallace into getting what she wants. During a poker game, Jennie pretends like she does not know how to play, but Porter saw through her. “I’m on to your little secret. You hide it well, but you’re not an amateur,” Porter said to Jennie (26). Porter thinks that he has gotten her all figured out, but it is all a part of her game. Jennie understood that Porter “wanted a ghost” of a woman (30). He is chasing his dead wife through Jennie just like her father has done. Jennie has learned how to take on different roles and will become anyone she has to be to reach her goals. She knew that Wallace is not like the other men she use to be with and that “[he] could not be won the usual way” (30). One day she saw Wallace sneak into the practice barn, know that she goes in there to practice. After she was done with her performance, she had never “forgotten her audience” (31).  She is leading him to believe that he was the one in control when in reality she was. Another example would be when they made love. Jennie explained that she “was careful that first night with him. Barely moving while his lips traced her cheeks, she imagined herself dead, a cold body under examination” (35-36). She was being “careful” because she does not want to scare him off and she “imagined herself dead”, not moving because it reminded her of when her father raped her. Towards the end of this short story, Jennie has learned a secret about Porter, which she will use if she does not get what she wants. She will “ask Porter for a big tin washtub, later a feather mattress, and slowly work her way up into a mirrored Pullman” (44). Her main goal is the mirrored Pullman because she does not get to see herself in a full-length mirror often and wants to be reminded that she is alive. Another reason that she wants a Pullman is that she wants fame and to have her name plastered on it.

Growing up, Jennie Dixianna did not have the greatest childhood. In her new life, Jennie tries to forget about her past, but everything she does keeps reminding her of it. Due to the trauma her family caused, Jennie has learned how to get what she wants by manipulating men and hiding her true identity.