Summary
Summary of The Foolish Virgin
Key ideas
Key idea 1
Mary waits for her destined love
Mary Adams lives alone above Madison Square, teaching school while dreaming of a husband, a home and a baby. She believes God has chosen one man for her, and she waits for him with a faith that loneliness cannot shake.
Her friend Jane Anderson sees danger in that certainty. Jane values reason and ambition, while Mary takes comfort in prayer and love stories. Their quarrel sets up the question that follows Mary: can feeling certain about love keep her safe?
Key idea 2
A stranger seems to answer her hopes
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Key idea 3
Speed carries Mary toward a proposal
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Key idea 4
Mary chooses trust over Jane's warning
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Key idea 5
Marriage brings promises and troubling signs
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Key idea 6
The mountain cabin deepens the mystery
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Key idea 7
The pearls expose Jim's hidden life
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Key idea 8
Jim teaches Nance to worship money
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Key idea 9
Love needs questions as well as faith
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The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
Read the rest freeWho it’s for
Readers who like early twentieth century American fiction, stories of courtship and marriage, vivid settings from Manhattan to the Blue Ridge, and novels that argue openly about what women and men owe each other.
What this book is
The Foolish Virgin is a novel by Thomas Dixon Jr., set in New York and the mountains of North Carolina in the years before the First World War. It follows Mary Adams, a Kentucky preacher's daughter who teaches school in the city and waits for the one man God has made for her. Dixon uses her story to argue about love, marriage, motherhood and the new ideas of his day.
The book opens with a quarrel between Mary and her friend Jane Anderson, an artist who thinks Mary's old-fashioned dreams will ruin her. Then a stranger with red hair and steel-blue eyes asks her for help in the Public Library, and her life moves faster than she can think. You get a love story, a race against doubt, and a long drive into the Black Mountains on Christmas Eve.
This summary walks through the story up to its dark turn and then looks at what the book is really about. Let us begin where Mary does, alone at her window above Madison Square.
In this summary
- 1A girl waits for her FateFree
- 2A stranger in the library
- 3Speed, the sea and a proposal
- 4Jane's warning and the workshop
- 5The wedding and the lotus island
- 6Cat-tail Peak and the cabin
- 7What the pearls reveal
- 8The night of the new god
- 9What the story is about
Key point 1 of 9
A girl waits for her Fate
Mary Adams is twenty-four and lives in one small room above Madison Square in New York. She teaches in the public schools for sixty dollars a month, but she does not believe women were meant to work for wages. Her dream is a home, a husband and a baby, and she is sure that God has set aside one man for her.
Her one close friend is Jane Anderson, a successful artist who lives by reason and ambition. Jane begs Mary to sit for the painter Gordon, who needs her head for a Madonna. Mary refuses at once, because the artist is married and the idea frightens her. Jane laughs at her and calls her a foolish virgin, and she warns that the day Mary meets her Fate may be the day she is ruined.
After Jane leaves, the loneliness comes down. Mary watches the crowds below her window and sees that not one face turns toward her. She keeps a kitten, two canaries and a shelf of love stories, and the janitress Ella, a one-eyed woman who speaks German and English, cleans for her and loves her.
That night she almost goes to Jane to say she was wrong. Instead she goes to prayer meeting, where Dr. Craddock preaches on the woman of the future. His sermon only strengthens her old faith, and she falls asleep believing her hour is near.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Check yourself
What belief shapes Mary's hopes for love?
Right. “Her dream is a home, a husband and a baby, and she is sure that God has set aside one man for her.”Not quite. “Her dream is a home, a husband and a baby, and she is sure that God has set aside one man for her.”
What does Jim admit when Mary questions him about the pearls?
Right. “He admits that he took them himself and says that the old man fought.”Not quite. “He admits that he took them himself and says that the old man fought.”
How do the wedding vows change in meaning through the story?
Right. “The wedding vows are repeated until they become both a promise and a threat.”Not quite. “The wedding vows are repeated until they become both a promise and a threat.”
Questions about The Foolish Virgin
What is The Foolish Virgin about?
It follows Mary Adams, a New York schoolteacher raised in a Kentucky minister's home, who becomes engaged to a mysterious young inventor after one week. Her honeymoon trip into the North Carolina mountains tests her faith, her ideas about love and her courage.
Who wrote The Foolish Virgin and when?
Thomas Dixon Jr. wrote it. It is set in the years of Model T automobiles and Asheville mountain resorts, with a story that places it in the early twentieth century, when debates about women and marriage were lively.
Why is Mary called a foolish virgin?
Her friend Jane Anderson uses the phrase for her, echoing the old parable of the maidens. It marks Mary as a trusting girl who guards her purity and dreams of one destined love, yet knows little about the world.
Where does the story take place?
The first half is set in New York City, around Madison Square, the Public Library, Central Park and Coney Island. Then the story moves to Florida's islands and the Black Mountains of North Carolina near Asheville and Mount Mitchell.
Is The Foolish Virgin easy to follow?
Yes, in the sense that it is told in short chapters with plenty of dialogue, clear scenes and a steady plot that moves from a bright romance to a Christmas Eve in a mountain cabin.
