Though he is a peasant he knows life and human nature and has, too, a philosophy of life,—a philosophy which to him is his salvation. He does not look on life in any bitter or hopeless way, yet he has that distrust and suspicion so characteristic of the Danish peasant. He is always master of the situation, and is cautious and sly enough never to allow himself to be caught off his guard. He weeps in sheer gratitude when his lawyer defends him, and he offers him a chew of his tobacco, but when the lawyer answers that he did it from a sense of Christian charity he answers, sarcastically, "I beg your pardon, Mr. Lawyer, I had not thought you people were so honest." In the last act (Act V., Scene 2) we see another illustration of his native shrewdness. When he has been sentenced back to life we would naturally expect a profuse expression of gratitude from Jeppe on his delivery from death. But when the judge says to him, "Thank us, that we have been so gracious as to sentence you back to life," Jeppe gives the unexpected answer that "if you had not hanged me yourself, I should have been glad to thank you that you let me down again."
While a mere peasant he appears dull and common-place enough, but give him the opportunity which he gets from the second act and on, and he displays a surprising readiness in his efforts to solve the perplexing problems he has had placed before him. The question of existence or non-existence which he has to answer might well perplex a sage; but while Jeppe is not quite able to unravel the situation, he makes rare use of the powers of logic at his command. When at last he is asked to face death, he does so with resignation, for he has not had much to be thankful for in life. In the supposed hour of his death he turns, not to the Bible of which he is so blissfully ignorant, but to that never-failing comforter through life—the whiskey bottle. When he bids farewell, as he supposes, to this world, he includes the whole circle of his interest, and says, "Goodbye," and "Thanks for good company" to his family and his animal friends, including his dappled horse, his faithful dog, and even "Mo'ns," his black cat.
We have then in Jeppe a character furnishing on the one hand entertainment to the young and light of heart, and on the other an interesting study for the psychologist, the statesman, the socialist, the historian and the philanthropist.
Thus the author has depicted through the various burlesque and humorous situations of a comedy a concrete yet typical character, he has given us the pathetic history of a poor, oppressed peasant, a whole human life from the cradle to the grave.
—W. C. W.