# Jesse Bentley — Winesburg, Ohio character guide

> Jesse Bentley in Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Jesse, The Bentley

**First appearance:** 0009-godliness

## Snapshot

A fanatic Ohio farmer who seized his family's land young, ruled it with joyless zeal, and cannot master the hungers inside himself.

## Who they are

Jesse Bentley takes over the Bentley farm as a slight, minister-like young man and drives everyone around him into fearful obedience, including a delicate wife who does not survive the labor he permits. He is half strong—able to master others but never himself—and his religious ambition for legacy curdles into something isolating. His thwarted longing for a son and heir sets the emotional weather for the Bentley sections of the book.

## Relationships

### [David Hardy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/winesburg_ohio_se/characters/david_hardy)

_family_

David is the grandson of the domineering and religiously fanatical Jesse Bentley, who terrifies him.

### [Ed Handby](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/winesburg_ohio_se/characters/ed_handby)

_professional_

Ed Handby works as a bartender in a saloon that Jesse Bentley, a devout farmer, despises.

### [David Hardy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/winesburg_ohio_se/characters/david_hardy)

_family_

David is the grandson of the domineering and religiously fanatical Jesse Bentley, who terrifies him.

### [Ed Handby](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/winesburg_ohio_se/characters/ed_handby)

_professional_

Ed Handby works as a bartender in a saloon that Jesse Bentley, a devout farmer, despises.

## In the story

### [Godliness](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/winesburg_ohio_se/chapters/godliness)

The owner and overlord of the Bentley farm, a man consumed by a vision of himself as a servant of God, praying for a son to help him seize the lands of his neighbors.

### [Terror](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/winesburg_ohio_se/chapters/terror)

The prosperous farmer, driven by religious fervor after a successful year, attempts to perform a burnt offering of a lamb to receive a divine message for David. He is struck by David's stone and later interprets the boy's disappearance as the work of a messenger from God.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/winesburg_ohio_se/characters/jesse_bentley
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/winesburg_ohio_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/winesburg_ohio_se/characters