Characters
- Mary Barton — The eponymous character, a very beautiful girl.
- Mrs Mary Barton — Mary's mother, who dies early on.
- John Barton — Mary's father, a millworker, active member in trade unions.
- George Wilson — John Barton's best friend, a worker at Harry Carson's mill.
- Jane Wilson — George Wilson's wife, short-tempered.
- Jem Wilson — Son of George and Jane, an engineer and inventor who has loved Mary from his childhood.
- Mr Henry Carson — Wealthy owner of a mill in Manchester.
- Harry Carson — Son of Henry Carson, attracted to Mary.
- Alice Wilson — George Wilson's sister, a pious old washerwoman, herbalist, sick-nurse.
- Margaret Jennings — Neighbour of Alice, blind, a sometime singer, a friend to Mary.
- Job Legh — Margaret's grandfather, a self-taught naturalist.
- Ben Sturgis — An old sailor, who looks after Mary during her stay in Liverpool.
- Will Wilson — Alice's nephew (Jem's cousin), whom she raised after the death of his parents. A sailor, he falls in love with Margaret.
- Esther (last name unknown) — Sister of Mrs Mary Barton, she is a fallen woman and on the periphery for most of the story.
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Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“There are characters which are continually creating collisions and nodes for themselves in dramas which nobody is prepared to act with them. Their susceptibilities will clash against objects that remain innocently quiet.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“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)
“Children pay little attention to their parent’s teachings, but reproduce their characters faithfully.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)