Borges ‘‘The Aleph’’ is narrated by Borges, a fictional stand-in for the author, which allows him to foster a sense of realism. Like the author, the narrator is an Argentine writer who detests pretentious authors like Daneri and who was also passed by for the National Prize for Literature. The narrator is a man haunted…
Tag: Characters
What We Cannot Speak About We Must Pass Over in Silence – Characters
Friend The narrator’s friend is already dead when the story opens. He is only once referred to by his name, Donald Williams. Before he died, the friend told the narrator that he had a son in prison, whom he visited about once a year. The friend said that the hardest part about visiting was walking…
Someone to Talk To by Deborah Eisenberg – Characters
Beale Later that evening, Shapiro performs the concerto at the acoustically challenged hall. When he had performed the piece seventeen years earlier, his performance was described as “ affirming .” Now, in this hall, though he does his best, “it had simply sat over them all—a great, indestructible, affirming block of suet.” Outside the hall…
Paris 1991 – Characters
Marion Marion, Rebecca’s mother, died of cancer months before Rebecca and Tom go to Paris. She still has a profound influence, however, on her daughter. Rebecca seems to feel pressure to live an exciting, adventurous life that her mother could not have. When Rebecca buys the devil postcard and muses about how Marion would respond,…
The Necessary Grace to Fall – Characters
Carla Carla is Howard’s wife. She has an eight-year-old son, Kevin, by a previous marriage, and she works for the same insurance company that employs Howard. She is an aggressive woman who gets angry when Howard is late for dinner and reproaches him for his unreliability when she sees him in an unfamiliar neighborhood when…
The Middleman by Bharati Mukherjee – Characters
Andreas Andreas is the guerrilla leader. A tall, handsome man, he is Maria’s lover. When Alfie meets him, he realizes that Andreas is the man on the poster that Eduardo has placed on the wall of his room. It shows a man in beret, black boots, and bandolier who looks as if he might have…
Melon by Julian Barnes – Characters
William Bedster Bedster appears in this story as an example of the flexibility of the English class system: at one time the butler to the Earl of Tankerville, Bedster is described as having been able to rise in society to become a publican, or tavern manager, in Chelsea. Samuel Dobson Dobson is the second under-gardener…
Meeting Mrinal – Characters
Asha When Dinesh asks his mother how the meeting with Mrinal went, Asha admits that she “made a mess of things.” She offers to tell him about it over some hot milk with pistachios. Smiling, he agrees. As she prepares the milk, she plans the letter she will write to Mrinal to tell her the…
Last Courtesies – Characters
Aunt Bedelia Bedelia, aunt of the protagonist Lillian, has already died when the story begins, but there are flashback scenes in which the narrator describes the elderly woman with whom she lived. Intelligent, gracious, and refined in an old-fashioned way, Bedelia is well educated in the arts and well traveled. She brings out the best…
Immortality by Yiyun Li – Characters
Dictator The dictator is not named and does not appear directly in the story, but his presence is felt everywhere. His photograph appears all the time in the newspapers during the 1950s; at that time, he is “the only superstar in the media,” and the townspeople refer to him as “Our Father, Our Savior, the…