Characters
- Dorothy Hare – a spinster in her late twenties (28 at first), she lacks the ability to direct her own life and ends up as a trapped victim in every situation. She is successively dependent upon her father for a home, upon a fellow transient (Nobby) for means of survival and direction, upon fellow pickers for food in the hop fields, upon her father's cousin to find her employment, upon Mrs Creevy whose school appears to offer the only job available to her, and finally upon Mr Warburton to bring her home.
- Rev. Charles Hare – Dorothy's father, he is a self-centred clergyman whose spirituality and charity exist only in formal terms. He believes that tradesmen and the working class are beneath him, and refuses to pay them. He has some money, albeit dwindling, in stocks, and accumulates gargantuan debts.
- Mr Warburton – an easy-going and friendly bachelor in his late forties. He has three illegitimate children (whom he refers to as "the bastards") by his Spanish mistress, Dolores. He is seen as highly immoral.
- Mrs Evelina Semprill – Knype Hill's malicious gossip monger, she gets her comeuppance when she is sued for libel.
- Nobby – a vagrant who lives by begging, casual work and petty crime. He is eventually arrested for theft while working in the hop fields.
- Sir Thomas Hare, a "good-hearted, chuckle-headed" baronet—a caricature Wodehousian aristocrat.
- Mrs Creevy – the mean proprietress of a small school—she is tight-fisted and enjoys minor victories at the expense of others.
Read more about this topic: A Clergyman's Daughter
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“No author has created with less emphasis such pathetic characters as Chekhov has....”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“A criminal trial is like a Russian novel: it starts with exasperating slowness as the characters are introduced to a jury, then there are complications in the form of minor witnesses, the protagonist finally appears and contradictions arise to produce drama, and finally as both jury and spectators grow weary and confused the pace quickens, reaching its climax in passionate final argument.”
—Clifford Irving (b. 1930)
“His leanings were strictly lyrical, descriptions of nature and emotions came to him with surprising facility, but on the other hand he had a lot of trouble with routine items, such as, for instance, the opening and closing of doors, or shaking hands when there were numerous characters in a room, and one person or two persons saluted many people.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)