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| The King of Sicilia, and the childhood friend of the Bohemian King Polixenes. He is gripped by jealous fantasies, which convince him that Polixenes has been having an affair with his wife, Hermione; his jealousy leads to the destruction of his family. |
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| The virtuous and beautiful Queen of Sicilia. Falsely accused of infidelity by her husband, Leontes, she apparently dies of grief just after being vindicated by the Oracle of Delphi, but is restored to life at the play's close. |
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| The daughter of Leontes and Hermione. Because her father believes her to be illegitimate, she is abandoned as a baby on the coast of Bohemia, and brought up by a Shepherd. Unaware of her royal lineage, she falls in love with the Bohemian Prince Florizel. |
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| The King of Bohemia, and Leontes's boyhood friend. He is falsely accused of having an affair with Leontes's wife, and barely escapes Sicilia with his life. Much later in life, he sees his only son fall in love with a lowly Shepherd's daughter--who is, in fact, a Sicilian princess. |
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| Polixenes's only son and heir; he falls in love with Perdita, unaware of her royal ancestry, and defies his father by eloping with her. |
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| An honest Sicilian nobleman, he refuses to follow Leontes's order to poison Polixenes, deciding instead to flee Sicily and enter the Bohemian King's service. |
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| A noblewoman of Sicily, she is fierce in her defense of Hermione's virtue, and unrelenting in her condemnation of Leontes after Hermione's death. She is also the agent of the (apparently) dead Queen's resurrection. |
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A roguish peddler, vagabond, and pickpocket; he steals the Clown's purse and does a great deal of pilfering at the Shepherd's sheepshearing, but ends by assisting in Perdita and Florizel's escape.
Shepherd - An old and honorable sheep-tender, he finds Perdita as a baby and raises her as his own daughter. |
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| Paulina's husband, and also a loyal defender of Hermione. He is given the unfortunate task of abandoning the baby Perdita on the Bohemian coast. |
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| The Shepherd's buffoonish son, and Perdita's adopted brother. |
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| The young prince of Sicilia, Leontes and Hermione's son. He dies, perhaps of grief, after his father wrongly imprisons his mother. |
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| An old and honorable sheep-tender, he finds Perdita as a baby and raises her as his own daughter. |
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| A lord of Sicilia, sent to Delphi to ask the Oracle about Hermione's guilt. |
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| A Sicilian lord, he accompanies Cleomenes to Delphi. |
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| One of Hermione's ladies-in-waiting. |
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| king of Thebes before the action of Oedipus the King begins. He is renowned for his intelligence and his ability to solve riddles—he saved the city of Thebes and was made its king by solving the riddle of the Sphinx, the supernatural being that had held the city captive. His name’s literal meaning (“swollen foot”) is the clue to his identity—he was taken from the house of Laius as a baby and left in the mountains with his feet bound together. On his way to Thebes, he killed his biological father, not knowing who he was, and proceeded to marry Jocasta, his biological mother. |
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| Oedipus’s wife and mother, and Creon’s sister. Jocasta appears only in the final scenes of Oedipus the King. In her first words, she attempts to make peace between Oedipus and Creon, pleading with Oedipus not to banish Creon. She is comforting to her husband and calmly tries to urge him to reject Tiresias’s terrifying prophecies as false. Jocasta solves the riddle of Oedipus’s identity before Oedipus does, and she expresses her love for her son and husband in her desire to protect him from this knowledge. |
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| Oedipus’s wife and mother, and Creon’s sister. Jocasta appears only in the final scenes of Oedipus the King. In her first words, she attempts to make peace between Oedipus and Creon, pleading with Oedipus not to banish Creon. She is comforting to her husband and calmly tries to urge him to reject Tiresias’s terrifying prophecies as false. Jocasta solves the riddle of Oedipus’s identity before Oedipus does, and she expresses her love for her son and husband in her desire to protect him from this knowledge. |
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| Child of Oedipus and Jocasta, and therefore both Oedipus’s daughter and his sister. Antigone appears briefly at the end of Oedipus the King, when she says goodbye to her father as Creon prepares to banish Oedipus. She appears at greater length in Oedipus at Colonus, leading and caring for her old, blind father in his exile. But Antigone comes into her own in Antigone. As that play’s protagonist, she demonstrates a courage and clarity of sight unparalleled by any other character in the three Theban plays. Whereas other characters—Oedipus, Creon, Polynices—are reluctant to acknowledge the consequences of their actions, Antigone is unabashed in her conviction that she has done right. |
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| Oedipus’s brother-in-law. Appears more than any other character in the three plays combined. |
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| Son of Oedipus, and thus also his brother. He arrives at Colonus seeking his father’s blessing in his battle with his brother, Eteocles, for power in Thebes. |
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| the blind soothsayer of Thebes, appears in both Oedipus the King and Antigone. The literal blindness of the soothsayer points to the metaphorical blindness of those who refuse to believe the truth about themselves when they hear it spoken. |
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| Creon’s son, who appears only in Antigone. Engaged to marry Antigone. Motivated by his love for her, he argues with Creon about the latter’s decision to punish her. |
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| Oedipus’s daughter. fears helping Antigone bury Polynices but offers to die beside Antigone when Creon sentences her to die. Antigone, however, refuses to allow her sister to be martyred for something she did not have the courage to stand up for. |
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| Oedipus’s daughter. fears helping Antigone bury Polynices but offers to die beside Antigone when Creon sentences her to die. Antigone, however, refuses to allow her sister to be martyred for something she did not have the courage to stand up for. |
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| The king of Athens in Oedipus at Colonus. A renowned and powerful warrior, takes pity on Oedipus and defends him against Creon. the only one who knows the spot at which Oedipus descended to the underworld—a secret he promises Oedipus he will hold forever. |
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| Sometimes comically obtuse or fickle, sometimes perceptive, sometimes melodramatic, reacts to the events onstage. Reactions can be lessons in how the audience should interpret what it is seeing, or how it should not interpret what it is seeing. |
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| Born an orphan, she lives a varied and exciting life, moving through an astonishing number of marriages and affairs and becoming a highly successful professional criminal before her eventual retirement and repentance. Adopts an alias, or rather is given by the criminal public, during her years as an expert thief. |
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| A convicted felon, transported to the American colonies soon after her daughter was born. She reappears midway through the novel, when Moll travels to Virginia with the husband who turns out to be her half-brother. She leaves her daughter a sizable inheritance when she dies, which Moll reclaims in America at the end of the novel. |
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| A widow in Colchester who takes care of the child Moll from the age of three through her teenage years. Her sudden death precipitates Moll's placement with a local wealthy family |
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| One of the two brothers in the family with which Moll spends her teenage years, he falls in love with her. She becomes the mistress of him, under the mistaken understanding that he intends to marry her when he comes into his inheritance. |
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| One of the two brothers in the family with which Moll spends her teenage years, he falls in love with her. She becomes the mistress of him, under the mistaken understanding that he intends to marry her when he comes into his inheritance. |
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| The younger of the two brothers who fall in love with Moll. He eventually marries her, in spite of his family's disapproval, but dies after five years. |
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| Moll's second husband, a tradesman with the manners of a gentleman. His financial indiscretions sink them into poverty, and he eventually escapes to France as a fugitive from the law. |
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| man who marries Moll under the deception that she has a great fortune. Together they move to Virginia, where he has his plantations. There, Moll learns that he is actually her half-brother and leaves him to return to England. |
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| A well-to-do man who befriends Moll and eventually makes her his mistress. His wife is mad, but he keeps Moll for six years before an illness and religious experience prompt him to break off the affair. |
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| A prosperous man whom Moll agrees to marry if he will divorce his unfaithful wife. They live happily for several years, but he then dies. |
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| Also called James and "my Lancashire husband," he is the only man that Moll has any real affection for. They marry under a mutual deception and then part ways. Eventually they are reunited in prison and begin a new life together in America. |
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| Moll's landlady and midwife, later her friend and confederate in crime. She helps Moll manage an inconvenient pregnancy and initiates her into the criminal underworld. |
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| Moll's son by the husband who was also her brother. She meets him with an overwhelming affection on her return to America, and he very generously helps her get established there. |
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| A country girl educated in a convent and married to Charles Bovary at a young age, she harbors idealistic romantic illusions, covets sophistication, sensuality, and passion, and lapses into fits of extreme boredom and depression when her life fails to match the sentimental novels she treasures. She has a daughter, Berthe, but lacks maternal instincts and is often annoyed with the child. Occasionally, guilt or a memory of her simple childhood causes her to repent, and she becomes devoutly religious and dedicates herself to her husband and child. Such fits of conscience are short-lived. |
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| A country doctor, kind, but simple, dull, and unremarkable. terrible doctor who manages simple cases decently but is incapable of performing difficult operations. For example, when he tries to operate on Hippolyte’s leg, it develops gangrene and has to be removed. Only his mother holds as much sway over him as his wife, and even she loses control over him after his marriage. Despite his deep love for Emma, he doesn’t understand her. Her looks and dress captivate him, but he remains oblivious to her personality. His adoration of her often leads him to act with baffling innocence. He fails to detect her extramarital affairs with Rodolphe and Leon, which are so poorly concealed that they become the subjects of town gossip. |
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| apothecary at Yonville; a pompous, self-impressed man of the bourgeois class who helps Charles become established as a doctor in the town. He loves to hear himself talk, and his lengthy commentaries are filled with clichés. His pomposity can cause real harm, as when he encourages Charles to operate on Hippolyte to disastrous effect. Often argues with Bournisien, the town priest, claiming that religion and prayer are useless. He is the perfect embodiment of all the bourgeois values and characteristics that so disgust Flaubert and bore his heroine, Emma. |
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| mma’s friend in Yonville, who later becomes her lover. law clerk in Yonville, he shares many of Emma’s romantic preconceptions and her love for sentimental novels. He falls in love with her but moves away to Paris to study law, partly because he considers their love impossible as long as she remains married. When Emma meets him later in Rouen, his time in the city has made him more sure of himself. He now perceives Emma to be unsophisticated and thinks he can win her love. Although Emma believes him to be cosmopolitan, Flaubert presents him as awkward and full of himself. Drawn to his newfound urban sophistication, Emma begins an affair with him. At first, they succeed in living up to one another’s romantic ideals. However, as the affair progresses, he and Emma grow increasingly bored and disgusted with one another. He cannot help her when she is in monetary distress and makes excuses for failing to help her financially. He marries shortly after Emma's death. |
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| Emma’s first lover, a wealthy landowner with an estate near Yonville. Shrewd, selfish, and manipulative. He has had scores of lovers and believes Emma to be no more sincere than any of them. He plots his seduction of Emma with strategic precision, begins an affair with her, and then abandons her when he becomes bored of her romantic fancies and emotional demands. |
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| A sly, sinister merchant and moneylender in Yonville who leads Emma into debt, financial ruin, and eventually suicide by playing on her weakness for luxury and extravagance. tempts people with luxuries they can’t afford and knows just when to appear with his requests for money and promises of more loans. |
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| The town priest in Yonville, tends to focus more on worldly matters than on spiritual ones. He often argues with Homais about the value of religion, but seems incapable of grasping deep spiritual problems. |
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| The crippled servant at the inn in Yonville. Under pressure from Emma and Homais, Charles attempts to operate on his club foot. The operation fails, gangrene sets in, and Hippolyte loses his leg. |
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| The town priest in Yonville, tends to focus more on worldly matters than on spiritual ones. He often argues with Homais about the value of religion, but seems incapable of grasping deep spiritual problems. |
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| The crippled servant at the inn in Yonville. Under pressure from Emma and Homais, Charles attempts to operate on his club foot. The operation fails, gangrene sets in, and Hippolyte loses his leg. |
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| Charles and Emma’s daughter, who is condemned to a life of poverty by her mother’s financial excesses and her parents’ deaths. |
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| The tax collector in Yonville. Regularly takes his meals at the Lion d'Or inn. He is quiet. and amuses himself by making napkin rings on the lathe in his attic. |
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| Leon’s first employer, the well-to-do lawyer in Yonville. When Emma seeks his help with her financial hardship, he offers his assistance in return for sexual favors—an offer she angrily declines. |
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| Emma’s father, a simple, essentially kindly farmer with a weakness for drink. He is devoted both to Emma and to the memory of his first wife, whom he loved deeply. |
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| An esteemed doctor from Rouen who is called in after Emma takes arsenic at the end of the novel. He is coldly analytical and condescending to his inferiors, but he is brilliant and competent, and he feels a real sympathy for his patients. |
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| A bitter, conservative woman who spoiled her son Charles as a youth and disapproves of his marriage to Emma. She sees through Emma’s lies and tries to get Charles to rein in his wife’s excessive spending, but she rarely succeeds. |
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| Homais's assistant. Young, impressionable, and simple. He falls terribly in love with Emma and unwittingly gives her access to the arsenic that she uses to commit suicide. |
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| Charles’s first wife. She realizes that Charles is enamored with Emma. Soon after having this realization, she dies from the shock of having all her property stolen by her lawyer. |
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