Solaris (novel) - Characters

Characters

The protagonist, Dr. Kris Kelvin, is a psychologist recently arrived from Earth to the space station studying the planet Solaris. He was married to Rheya (Harey in the original Polish), who committed suicide when he abandoned their marriage. Her exact double is his visitor aboard the space station and becomes an important character.

Snow (Snaut in Polish) is the first person Kelvin meets aboard the station, and his visitor is not shown. The last inhabitant Kelvin meets is Sartorius, the most reclusive member of the crew. He shows up only intermittently and is always suspicious of the other crewmembers. His visitor remains anonymous, yet there are indications it might be a child with a straw hat.

Until recently, there was also another member of the crew, Gibarian, who had been an instructor of Kelvin's at university, and who committed suicide just hours before Kelvin came to the station. Gibarian's visitor was a "giant Negress" who twice appears to Kelvin; first in a hallway soon after his arrival, and then while he is examining Gibarian's cadaver. She seems to be unaware of the other humans she meets, or she simply chooses to ignore them.

Rheya, who killed herself with a lethal injection after quarrelling with Kelvin, returns as his visitor. Overwhelmed with conflicting emotions after confronting her, Kelvin lures the Rheya visitor into a shuttle and launches it into outer space to be rid of her. Her fate unknown to the other scientists. Snow suggests hailing Rheya's shuttle to learn her condition, but Kelvin objects. Rheya soon reappears but with no memory of the shuttle incident. Moreover, the second Rheya becomes aware of her transient nature and is haunted by being Solaris's means-to-an-end, affecting Kelvin in unknown ways. After listening to a tape recording by Gibarian, and so learning her true nature, she attempts suicide by drinking liquid oxygen. This fails because her body is made of neutrinos, stabilized by some unknown force field, and has both incredible strength and the ability to quickly regenerate from all injuries. She subsequently convinces Snow to destroy her with a Sartorius-developed device that disrupts the sub-atomic structure of the constructs (visitors) and prevents their reappearance.