MBTI Type: ENFJ

The first time Jenny Lind meets P.T. Barnum, she makes an immediate moral judgment based on his social carelessness—he considers a bad reputation to be just as valuable for profit as a good one, which she calls “the words of a scoundrel.” A philanthropist who gives all her profits away for charity (and enjoys reminding him of that fact when he says he could make her rich, in a subtle dig at his need to profit off all his ventures), she is also an effective woman able to smooth out public mishaps. When Barnum creates a scene with his father-in-law by kicking him out of the after-party intended to celebrate Jenny and introduce her to New York society, Jenny draws attention away from it with humor (“I warned you not to have so much champagne around, Mr. Barnum”) and then raises a toast in his honor. She makes another harsh judgment upon him later, when she realizes he has no interest in a romantic attachment to her, and she accuses him of having led her on—she fails to understand or accept that the misunderstanding is her own (a fault of inferior thinking, and the EFJ tendency to assign blame to others). She says when he is “carless with other people, you bring ruin upon yourself.” Jenny, rather cruelly, lashes out at him in public by kissing him farewell on the stage, which allows all the newspapers to run the story and bring him financial and marital ruin, because he disappointed her. Though her middle functions are not explicit, Jenny seems to be more of an idealist who senses the potential in Barnum for something greater than she has achieved in her life. She reveals that she does not feel as if she fits into society and does not “belong” there due to her illegitimate birth, and sings about how nothing is “ever enough” to satisfy her desire to fulfill all her urges. She goes against convention in her decision to tour with Barnum (a low level “con man”), all of which suggest a more unconventional, risk-taking intuitive focus.

Enneagram: 2w3 so/sx

Jenny earns love and approval through giving away most of the money she earns from her singing career to various charities. She admits that she doesn’t feel she ‘deserves’ to be in high society, because of her mother’s mistake (her illegitimate birth). She is easily able to respond to people on an emotional level, lavishing praise and attention upon Barnum’s wife and children, and smoothing over a ‘scene’ between him and his father-in-law. But what she wants is love, and she expects that having put the world at Barnum’s feet, he will give her what she wants—a romantic entanglement. When he does not, she becomes wrathful and frames him as an adulterer in the press to destroy his reputation and damage his marriage (moving into unhealthy 8 disintegration behaviors). She thinks she is doing him a ‘favor’ by introducing him to higher society, and then she turns on him and uses that against him. She enjoys success and is ambitious and greatly desires to be liked.