Characters
Miri Larendaughter: Miri is a fourteen-year-old girl and a resident of Mount Eskel. As a child, her father forbade her from setting foot in the quarries where the villagers work daily. As a result, she feels unwanted and assumes her small stature prevents her from being useful to her community. When the chief delegate of Danland announces that Mount Eskel would be the home of the future princess, Miri is chosen, along with other eligible girls, to attend the princess academy. At the academy, she discovers a passion for reading and manages to stand out among her peers due to her intelligence, critical thinking and leadership skills, and willingness to help her classmates despite bitter competition. Her exam scores eventually earn her the title of academy princess. In the end, she returns to her home with dreams of starting a village school.
Britta Paweldaughter: A lowlander by birth, Britta is initially presented as an orphan who moved to Mount Eskel to live with her only remaining relatives. She has a difficult time fitting into the local culture, and her silence is often misinterpreted by her peers as typical lowlander arrogance. At the princess academy, she befriends Miri and several other girls, although she never manages to hear the unique "quarry-speech" that unites all residents of the mountain. Britta starts out as the only girl who could read, although she tries to hide the fact in the hopes of blending in. It is later revealed that Prince Steffan had been Britta's childhood playmate and later love interest. Her father is a nobleman and has deliberately sent her to Mount Eskel under a false pretense so that she could wed the prince. In the end, Britta is selected by Steffan as his chosen princess and leaves to prepare for a future with the man of her dreams.
Peder Doterson: Peder is a fifteen-year-old boy and a resident of Mount Eskel who works in the quarries with the rest of the villagers. He is described as tall and lean with a head of tawny curls. Peder and Miri grew up as childhood playmates, and as they hit puberty, their affection for each other blossomed into romantic love, a fact that they both feared to reveal. Whereas Miri considers herself scrawny, useless, and undesirable compared to other village girls, Peder is discouraged by his belief that Miri desires to marry the prince. Throughout the novel, Peder seems to have a special connection to Miri, as he is able to hear her pleas for help (when bandits held the academy girls) when even her own father could not. In addition, Peder has considerable artistic talent and finds a passion in carving linder, a hobby that is discouraged due to the need for extra hands to help with mining. However, as conditions improve due to Miri's skills in commerce, Peder is able to spend time on his hobby and looks forward to the day when he can formally study from a skilled artisan.
Read more about this topic: Princess Academy
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“We are like travellers using the cinders of a volcano to roast their eggs. Whilst we see that it always stands ready to clothe what we would say, we cannot avoid the question whether the characters are not significant of themselves.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“When the characters are really alive before their author, the latter does nothing but follow them in their action, in their words, in the situations which they suggest to him.”
—Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936)
“My characters never die screaming in rage. They attempt to pull themselves back together and go on. And that’s basically a conservative view of life.”
—Jane Smiley (b. 1949)