Characters
The major characters are:
- Baron Felix Volkbein
- The only son of Guido, who hid his Judaism and pretended to be a Baron. Felix is driven by his desire to maintain the beauty of old-world Europe in the continued traditions of the nobility. When his son, also named Guido, is born, Felix is forced to give up on his ideas of nobility to help the disabled child enter the church.
- Nora Flood
- A salon keeper and lover of Robin.
- Dr. Matthew O'Connor
- A transvestite who pretends to be a doctor, performing both deliveries and abortions in a futile struggle for legitimacy. A native of San Francisco, he was a soldier during World War I, but notably remarks that he wishes to have been the female lover of a soldier. Despite his removal from the novel's primary action, O'Connor's seemingly aimless philosophical babblings provide the backbone of the novel's dialogues. Writer Jane Rule claims that O'Connor is the main character of Nightwood and that his "ironic cynicism and self-pity" set the novel's tone.
- Jenny Petherbridge
- Four times a widow, she has lost the ability to know what she wants out of life. She spends her life stealing happiness from others in order to acquire some for herself.
- Robin Vote
- Robin flies chaotically through the lives of Felix, Nora, and Jenny, eternally trying to get away from what makes her unhappy without realizing what makes her happy.
Read more about this topic: Nightwood
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“The Nature of Familiar Letters, written, as it were, to the Moment, while the Heart is agitated by Hopes and Fears, on Events undecided, must plead an Excuse for the Bulk of a Collection of this Kind. Mere Facts and Characters might be comprised in a much smaller Compass: But, would they be equally interesting?”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)
“To marry a man out of pity is folly; and, if you think you are going to influence the kind of fellow who has “never had a chance, poor devil,” you are profoundly mistaken. One can only influence the strong characters in life, not the weak; and it is the height of vanity to suppose that you can make an honest man of anyone.”
—Margot Asquith (1864–1945)
“What makes literature interesting is that it does not survive its translation. The characters in a novel are made out of the sentences. That’s what their substance is.”
—Jonathan Miller (b. 1936)