Characters
- Major Henry Scobie – Longtime police inspector and protagonist of the novel.
- Louise Scobie – Henry's devout Catholic wife.
- Catherine Scobie – Deceased daughter of Henry and Louise.
- Ali – Scobie's long-time African servant.
- Edward Wilson – New inspector who secretely spies on the actions of Major Scobie, and is in love with Louise.
- Harris – Housemate to Wilson
- "Dicky" Pemberton – Inspector who commits suicide due to his large debt to Yusef.
- Helen Rolt – Newly arriving widow who becomes Scobie's mistress.
- Yusef – Syrian local black marketeer who blackmails Scobie after finding a letter in which he expresses his love for Helen.
- Tallit – Catholic Syrian who is the main competitor to Yusef.
- Father Rank – Local Catholic priest.
- Father Clay – Catholic priest at Bamba who reads about saints.
Read more about this topic: The Heart Of The Matter
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“Philosophy is written in this grand book—I mean the universe—
which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it.”
—Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)
“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)
“Unresolved dissonances between the characters and dispositions of the parents continue to reverberate in the nature of the child and make up the history of its inner sufferings.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)