MBTI Type: ESTP
Caroline’s habitual tendency to live only for today is one of the underlining dramatic problems throughout the first season, because she purchases a keg of ale to drink for her own pleasure without intending to pay for it, then winds up in debtor’s prison after her stealing, borrowing, and evading of debt collectors rebounds on her. Prior to this, she would take her son’s wages and spend them on drink or frivolities to feed her 7 need for constant pleasures and distractions from her “sheer loneliness” (her husband being gone for months at a time). She never once thinks about the consequences of her actions or where her “good fortune” might be coming from, when she stumbles across a heavy purse in the woods in the finale and promptly uses the entire contents to purchase gifts for her children and luxurious meats and cheeses. It shocks her to believe the purse belonged to anyone else, and never occurred to her to ask around the hamlet to find out if anyone had taken it. She is careless in that respect of other people and their feelings and needs, but often feels guilt, shame, and tries to make up with people, particularly Emma, after doing bad things. Caroline can’t stand being disliked, but also assumes she can talk her way out of anything. She has no real sense of inner ethics to guide her, other than a general concern for her friends (after spending all of Emma’s money on frivolities, she brings them over to Emma’s house and makes a present of them to make up to her). This proves her emotions are often affected by those around her and their needs, but only after the fact—after she has done something logical but not always wise or considerate.
Enneagram: 7w8
Caroline’s pursuit of pleasure is both what gets her into regular trouble and what makes her likable within the small hamlet. Emma often chastises her for her wanton behavior (singing, dancing, drinking, and having “a lark”) while also wishing she herself could be more like Caroline and enjoy the pleasures of the moment. Caroline doesn’t feel any sense of responsibility for her actions most of the time, except in her rare self-guilt trips, whenever she moves to 1. After spending time in jail, she resolves to be better, be proper, etc., and winds up miserable as she denies herself all the things she wants, so much so that she soon resorts back to her earlier behaviors—which involve “over-indulgence.” She only atones for her ways in the final episode of the series, when she realizes that her lack of personal responsibility and reliability is preventing her beloved eldest son from marrying the girl he loves, out of a fear that he won’t be able to afford it if Caroline gets arrested yet again for stealing, drinking, or borrowing with no intention of paying it back. This comes about because Minnie works up the courage to yell at her and tell her off for being selfish. Caroline, to her credit, does not get angry at her, just calmly tells her she’s said her piece, now to get back on her bike and ride home. Caroline handles it in the way a 7w8 would—as a bold, larger-than-life woman who knows when she’s hearing the truth and who admires Minnie for not being a wimp. Previously, she had thought Minnie pathetic and undeserving of Alf, but after being stood up to, she tells her son to snap up Minnie before someone else does, because “I ain’t never seen so much loving in such a little waif of a girl.”
Interested in finding out your type? Get 16 Kinds of Crazy: The Sixteen Personality Types today! Or learn all about your Enneagram type in 9 Kinds of Quirky: The 9 Enneagram Types!
