Personality
In the show's setting, Jerry is the straight man, a figure who is "able to observe the chaos around him but not always be a part of it." Plot lines involving Jerry often concern his various relationships - Jerry often finds "stupid reasons to break up" with women; which, according to Elaine, occurs "every week."
Jerry is generally completely indifferent to what goes on in his friends' lives, seeing their misery as merely an entertaining distraction, as well as an opportunity for joke material. He often plays along with their hare-brained schemes, often just to see them fail. In the episode "The Serenity Now", Jerry lets out his emotions and cries, and is perplexed by the experience ("What is this salty discharge?"). In "The Foundation" Elaine points out that he has "never felt remorse," to which Jerry replies, "Yeah, I feel kinda bad about that." He will often nonchalantly state, "That's a shame" when something bad happens (often due to his or his friends' actions). A recurring joke is Jerry not helping Elaine carrying groceries or heavy objects. Jerry, George and Elaine all share a general trait of not letting go of other character's remarks and going to great lengths to be proven right. In one episode, Jerry goes out of his way to rent a house in Tuscany, Italy, just because "The Maestro" told him there weren't any available. Another example was when he bought his parents the same car over and over again, at great financial loss.
Despite his usual indifference to his friends and their actions, Jerry apparently is quite satisfied with his life, to the point that he actually feels worried about anything that might threaten the group lifestyle. In "The Invitations", for example, Jerry admits that he feels depressed about George getting married, seeing as how George will eventually leave the group and Jerry will never see him again. Once Elaine told him that she was "getting out" of the group, Jerry became so worried about a near future of just him and Kramer that he unknowingly almost walked into a car while crossing the street. In "The Bizarro Jerry", Jerry also grows panicky about losing the group dynamic when Kramer becomes too busy with his fake job and Elaine temporarily leaves to join the bizarro group, claiming that "The whole system's breaking down!" Jerry himself perfectly sums up his relation to his three friends in the episode "The Letter". In a deleted scene from that show, he claims that his friends are "not more important" than his girlfriends, but "they're as important."
Unlike George and Elaine, Jerry rarely runs into major personal problems. In "The Opposite", this tendency is explicitly pointed out, as Jerry goes through a number of experiences after which he invariably "breaks even," even as his friends are going through intense periods of success or failure. Even when Elaine threw Jerry's $20 bill out of the window, he accidentally found one in his coat pocket, evening out his luck. In "The Rye", during a particularly trying time for Elaine, she angrily tells Jerry, "You know, one of these days, something terrible is going to happen to you. It has to!" Jerry simply replies, "No, I'm going to be just fine." Many of the problems he does run into are the result of the actions of his archnemesis Newman, a disgruntled postal worker. In "The Old Man", George asks "What kind of a person are you?" in which Jerry replies "I think I'm pretty much like you, only successful."
However, Kramer persuades Jerry to do things that he's reluctant to do. In "The Mango", Kramer gets Jerry to buy fruit for him after Kramer is banned from the store over an argument with the owner. This continues until the owner bans Jerry, because his order is similar enough to Kramer's that it's obvious he's buying fruit for Kramer. The most famous example is in "The Chicken Roaster" in which Kramer and Jerry exchange apartments. This results in the two of them also switching personalities. In several arguments with Jerry, Kramer is incredibly stubborn, protecting his own interests. Examples of this include arguments in "The Chaperone," "The Face Painter," and "The Caddy." Probably the only exception is "The Kiss Hello" in which Kramer kissed Jerry as George walked in.
Jerry always wears a suit whenever he has to do his stand-up comedy act. In a few cases, Jerry wears an unusual item of clothing. Kramer has persuaded Jerry to wear the "pirate shirt" in "The Puffy Shirt", the cowboy boots in "The Mom & Pop Store" and the fur coat in "The Reverse Peephole". Like George, Jerry's hairstyle remains relatively the same throughout the series, though the length and thickness of it alters, especially from Season 3 onwards. There is one noticeable episode in which Jerry receives a bad haircut when he reluctantly agrees to get his hair done by an incompetent Italian barber in "The Barber".
As in real life, Jerry is a fan of comic book characters, particularly of Superman, who is his hero. As far as sports, Jerry is a fan of the New York Mets as evidenced as early as the episode "The Baby Shower" in which Kramer persuades him to install illegal cable by saying "The Mets have 75 games on cable this year." Jerry is also a fan of the Chicago Cubs,, the New York Knicks, the New York Giants, the New York Rangers and the New York Yankees. In early episodes, a New York Yankees hat sits on the counter near his computer. Later on, by the middle of Season 3, it was replaced with a Mets cap, possibly to better reflect Jerry's real-life support of the Queens side. In the first episode of Season 7, Jerry is shown watching a Yankees game while on the phone with George.
Jerry never smokes a cigarette but has been seen smoking a cigar. He is seen smoking a cigar briefly in "The Calzone" and "The Wizard". In "The Voice", Jerry is smoking a Cuban cigar while laughing and receiving money from Elaine (she bet that she could stop sleeping with David Puddy). Jerry also does not appear to have any particular interest in alcohol as he is rarely seen drinking beer or any other alcoholic beverage; however, he is seen drinking beer with George once in "The Shower Head," wine at various meals, and keeps a bottle of Hennigans scotch in his apartment, though he claims that he only uses it as a paint thinner.
Read more about this topic: Jerry Seinfeld (character)
Famous quotes containing the word personality:
“A personality is an indefinite quantum of traits which is subject to constant flux, change, and growth from the birth of the individual in the world to his death. A character, on the other hand, is a fixed and definite quantum of traits which, though it may be interpreted with slight differences from age to age and actor to actor, is nevertheless in its essentials forever fixed.”
—Hubert C. Heffner (1901–1985)
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“Fundamentally the male artist approximates more to the psychology of woman, who, biologically speaking, is a purely creative being and whose personality has been as mysterious and unfathomable to the man as the artist has been to the average person.”
—Beatrice Hinkle (1874–1953)