Go Tell IT On The Mountain (novel) - Characters

Characters

• John, the protagonist. He is fourteen years old at the beginning of the novel; described as frail and awkward.
• Roy, John's younger half-brother, who gets beaten by whites in the first section of the novel. He is described as boisterous.
• Ruth, infant daughter of Gabriel and Elizabeth.
• Sarah, daughter of Gabriel and Elizabeth.
• Elizabeth, Gabriel's second wife. As a child, she goes to live with her aunt in Maryland after her mother dies. Elizabeth speaks fondly of her loving father. Elizabeth is mother to four characters in the book: John (with Richard) and Roy, Ruth, and Sarah (with Gabriel).
• Gabriel, the father. He is a deacon, and is prejudiced against white people. He shows great antipathy, even hatred, towards John.
• Aunt Florence, Gabriel's older sister and therefore John's aunt. She intercedes with her brother over the punishments he gives out.
• Elisha, the pastor's nephew. He attempts to talk John into being a good lord-abiding young man.
• Sister Price
• Sister McCandless
• Deborah, Gabriel's first wife. When a teenager, she was gang-raped by white men.
• Mother Washington, a parishioner.
• Ella Mae, Mother Washington's granddaughter.
• Frank, Florence's husband, who died in the First World War in France. He drank, was dissolute, and saved no money.
• Elder Peters, an elder of the church.
• Esther. She drinks whisky and says she doesn't have time to pray. Gabriel, feeling a passion for her that he does not feel for his first wife, has sex with her and ends the relationship nine days later.
• Royal, Gabriel's illegitimate son with Esther. When news of Royal's death arrives, Deborah correctly surmises that Gabriel is Royal's father.
• Sister McDonald, Esther's mother and thereby Royal's maternal grandmother.
• Elizabeth's mother, who dies when Elizabeth is still a child; described as light-skinned.
• Elizabeth's father, he would take Elizabeth to the circus when she was a child.
• Elizabeth's aunt, who lives in Maryland.
• Richard, Elizabeth's boyfriend who takes her to New York City; self-educated, sometimes bitter, he is the biological father of John and the true love of Elizabeth's life, the only character in the book with ambition to change the system in which the characters live.
• Madame Williams, a Spiritualist friend of Elizabeth's aunt, with whom she stays while in city.