36 pages • 1 hour read
Lee SmithFair and Tender Ladies
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1988A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2 Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2 Summary: “Letters From Majestic”
In Part 2, Ivy begins writing often to Silvaney—a practice she continues for the rest of her life, as writing to the sister she feels is her “soul” allows Ivy to speak freely and process her feelings. She also writes to Beulah quite a bit, and she sends a few letters to Victor, Molly, and her new teacher, Miss Torrington. This section details Ivy’s first experiences outside of Sugar Fork, where she begins to shed some of her childhood naiveté through exposure to reckless role models, more education, and sex.
As soon as Ivy moves to Majestic, she begins experiencing passive sexual advances from men. As she notes: “I see them starring at me sometimes it makes me feel funny and bad. […] I do not wish to be maried nor have them star untill it is like ther eyes are touching my boddy underneath my dress” (93). In Majestic, Ivy and her family stay with Geneva Hunt at her boardinghouse, where they help out in exchange for a place to stay. For the first time ever, Ivy has her own room.
Ivy delights in observing all of the new people around her and trying to understand their behavior. With World War I looming, the timber and coal workers have plenty to keep them busy and gainfully employed. Men from the coal business start buying mining rights from the residents of the area, claiming that they won’t do anything with the land. One of the men pressures Ivy’s mother for mineral rights on her land; after additional pressure from Ivy, Maude agrees, which means Ivy will be able to go back to school.
Beulah lives with Curtis in Diamond, where the mines are, while Ethel continues working in the shop, Victor joins the Army, Garnie starts spending all of his time with a preacher named Sam Russell Sage, and Maude goes through the motions of life. Ivy observes: “It is like all the fire and wildness went out of her when we come down off the mountain” (106). Ivy goes to a revival, which she finds distressing, and is only prevented from being “saved” by her new teacher, Miss Torrington, dragging her away. Miss Torrington believes Ivy is special and capable of learning a great deal.
Ivy worries that she is “bad, bad, rotten clear throgh” (112) because she felt uncomfortable at the revival. She worries about Geneva, who is having sex out of wedlock with Sam Russell Sage, and about herself, due to a fascination with a boy named Lonnie Rash. Lonnie awakens Ivy’s sexual desires, though she does not understand her body’s reactions. Ivy and Lonnie begin having minor sexual interactions, though Ivy refrains from having sex with him despite her strong feelings.
Miss Torrington meets Ivy after school, trying to break Ivy’s rural grammar and habits, which she calls “backward customs” (115). Miss Torrington feels she is “espeshally suited to help you fulfill your destiny […] I can educate you, I can dress you, I can take you to Europe” (116). Miss Torrington invites Ivy to come to Boston with her. Ivy says yes, despite misgivings about missing her family. Miss Torrington invites Ivy to her room for a drawing lesson. During the lesson, Miss Torrington kisses Ivy’s neck. In confusion, Ivy runs away from Miss Torrington, and after running into Lonnie in the hallway, she takes Lonnie into her room and has sex with him.
Ivy remains in Majestic rather than leave with Miss Torrington. Lonnie wants to marry Ivy before he goes to war, but she does not want to marry him, despite pressure from her family. Everyone knows that Lonnie and Ivy have had sex, and several of the townsfolk treat Ivy differently now that she is “ruint.” Lonnie leaves for the army, and Ivy decides that she will join Miss Torrington after all, as she is “grown up now” (133), which she conveys to Miss Torrington.
However, Ivy’s plans are foiled as she learns that she’s been feeling unwell because she is pregnant. Geneva brings a doctor to perform an abortion, but Ivy’s mother objects, saying, “we will raise this baby ourselves […] We will keep this child” (137). Shortly after, Ivy’s mother dies. Maude’s estranged father comes to Majestic to claim her body, taking her back to his home rather than allowing her to be buried with John Arthur in Sugar Fork. Beulah invites Ivy to come to Diamond and live with her, which Ivy accepts. Ivy looks forward to leaving Majestic behind and starting a new chapter of her life as a mother.
Part 2 Analysis
This section juxtaposes Ivy’s continued innocence and budding maturity, as she sees and experiences new things in the world but does not know how to interpret those things. Ivy notices men staring at her with lust but does not understand what their looks mean—only that they make her uncomfortable, as though their eyes were touching her body. Ivy observes several women around her exhibiting “loose” behavior, including Geneva Hunt’s assistant, who kisses boys in the back shed, and Geneva herself, who takes up with a corrupt preacher. Even Miss Torrington, who seems uptight, makes an advance towards Ivy. While not explicitly addressed, Smith suggests that on some level, Ivy may have been excited by Miss Torrington’s kiss, as the very next thing she does is bed Lonnie Rash. Ivy’s childishness shows in full force after she has sex with Lonnie, as everyone in town but her seems to realize the implications of what she has done and what will happen to her.
Despite her lack of worldliness, Ivy continues to develop her knack for understanding people and the world more generally, far beyond what someone would expect from an uneducated young girl. Ivy makes observations about a stranger woman stopped for the night at Geneva’s, such as: “I decided she is not a lady, instead she is only rich” (119). Ivy is simultaneously a keen observer of and completely in the dark about other people.
As part of her observations, Ivy speaks frequently of possession in this section, mostly as it pertains to her ownership of people and things, and others’ ownership of her. Ivy finds Geneva’s boardinghouse thrilling, as she has her own room for the first time in her life. She takes pleasure in knowing that something belongs to her. However, Ivy ends up feeling owned by others several times, as Miss Torrington commands her and seems to believe that she alone can give Ivy what Ivy needs, Ivy’s mother asserts possession when she insists that Ivy keep her baby, and Ivy feels that the act of bringing Lonnie into her room somehow violates her privacy to the point that the room is no longer hers. After witnessing her grandfather take her mother’s dead body away despite her mother’s wishes, Ivy feels truly lost, as though she has lost the town of Majestic entirely. Her way of coping with her loss is to focus on her baby, whom Ivy can think of as hers, and reclaim some of what she feels she has lost.
