# Aspects of the Novel — Character guide

> Key figures in Aspects of the Novel by E. M. Forster.

- [Unknown Narrator](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/unknown_narrator.md): He opens by sorting his listeners into three voices — the placid bus driver, the aggressive golfer, and himself, the regretful one — and sides, uneasily, with the last. His confession that the story is a 'low atavistic f
- [Henry James](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/henry_james.md): James enters not as a man but as a method — the writer whose people can be understood completely, whose inner and outer lives are laid bare in a way no friend ever is. Forster uses him to draw the line between history's 
- [Moll Flanders](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/moll_flanders.md): Moll stands at the opposite pole from Miss Bates: a character so self-contained she can be lifted out of her book for the purposes of experiment without dragging a whole society with her. Forster uses her to show that De
- [Strether](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/strether.md): Strether lands in England already uneasy, and by the time he reaches Paris his orders have begun to dissolve — Chad Newsome is not ruined but improved, and the city that redeemed him gleams like a hard, iridescent jewel.
- [Chad Newsome](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/chad_newsome.md): Chad is the errand's object and its undoing: instead of going to the bad he has become distinguished, cordial, and sure enough of himself to be kind to the man with orders to remove him. His fondness for Paris, and Paris
- [Lady Bertram](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/lady_bertram.md): Lady Bertram belongs to the shrubbery of Mansfield Park, bound by a hundred threads to Highbury's social fabric and impossible to transplant without uprooting the whole. She is Forster's clean example of a flat character
- [Herman Melville](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/herman_melville.md): Forster treats Melville less as a man than as a test case: the novelist whose imagination refuses the tidy channels of plot and character and reaches instead for the prophetic. He stands apart from the drawing-room reali
- [Sir Walter Scott](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/sir_walter_scott.md): Forster uses Scott as a cautionary figure: a writer who can keep a reader turning pages yet whose characters never quite move us, because he has neither artistic detachment nor genuine passion. His reputation, Forster su
- [Dinah](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/dinah.md): Dinah sits beside Hetty in the condemned cell, and her power lies not in argument but in the sheer solidity of her faith — a living force that George Eliot herself seems to share. Where Hetty is closed and terrified, Din
- [Edouard](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/edouard.md): Edouard articulates the distinction Forster leans on throughout: that observable actions belong to history, while the dreams, joys, and self-communings we hide belong to fiction. He is less a personality than a lens, a m
- [Dickens](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/dickens.md): Forster uses Dickens to argue that flatness is not failure: his people can be summed up in a sentence, yet they carry a wonderful feeling of human depth. The trick, Forster suspects, is Dickens's own surplus of life, whi
- [André Gide](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/andre_gide.md): Gide enters the argument as a theorist as much as a novelist, offering the distinction between what is observable in a person and what shame or politeness keeps hidden. Forster borrows this to explain why fictional chara
- [Lovel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/lovel.md): Character from Scott's The Antiquary, discussed in relation to plot and mystery.
- [Bernard](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/bernard.md): Character from Virginia Woolf's The Waves, used to discuss pattern and rhythm.
- [The Heroine](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/the_heroine.md): Generic term for female protagonists across novels, analyzed for their narrative roles.
- [H. G. Wells](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/h_g_wells.md): Science fiction writer and critic, referenced for his views on character and society.
- [Mme. de Vionnet](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/mme_de_vionnet.md): Elegant Frenchwoman from The Ambassadors, key to Strether's awakening.
- [Scheherazade](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/scheherazade.md): Storyteller from One Thousand and One Nights, used to discuss narrative structure.
- [George Meredith](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/george_meredith.md): Novelist and poet, cited for his comic characters and psychological insight.
- [James Joyce](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/james_joyce.md): Modernist author, referenced for stream of consciousness and character innovation.
- [Jane Austen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/jane_austen.md): Novelist whose characters and plots are frequently used as examples of craft.
- [Emily Brontë](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/emily_bronte.md): Author of Wuthering Heights, discussed for prophetic and passionate character creation.
- [Aristotle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/aristotle.md): Ancient philosopher, cited for his Poetics and theories of plot and character.
- [Moby Dick](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/moby_dick.md): The white whale from Melville's novel, used to discuss symbol and prophecy.
- [Defoe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/defoe.md): Early novelist, discussed for his realistic characters and episodic plots.
- [Queen Victoria](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/queen_victoria.md): Monarch referenced in discussions of historical context and character types.
- [Gertrude Stein](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/gertrude_stein.md): Modernist writer, cited for her experimental approach to character and narrative.
- [Caleb Balderstone](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/caleb_balderstone.md): Servant character from Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor, used to discuss flatness.
- [Mr. Percy Lubbock](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/mr_percy_lubbock.md): Literary critic, referenced for his work on the craft of fiction.
- [Laura](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/laura.md): Character from various novels, used in discussions of flat and round types.
- [Homo Fictus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/homo_fictus.md): Term for fictional human, used to discuss the nature of character in novels.
- [Lord Glenallan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/lord_glenallan.md): Character from Scott's The Antiquary, involved in the novel's subplot.
- [Mrs. Proudie](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/mrs_proudie.md): Domineering character from Trollope's Barchester Towers, exemplifying flatness.
- [Esther Summerson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/esther_summerson.md): Narrator and heroine of Dickens's Bleak House, used to discuss point of view.
- [Dostoevsky](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/dostoevsky.md): Russian novelist, discussed for his psychological depth and prophetic vision.
- [Marcel Proust](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/marcel_proust.md): French novelist, cited for his intricate character development and memory themes.
- [Fanny](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/fanny.md): Character from various novels, referenced in discussions of flatness.
- [Laetitia Dale](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/laetitia_dale.md): Character from Meredith's The Egoist, used to discuss romantic subplots.
- [Sterne](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/sterne.md): Author of Tristram Shandy, discussed for his experimental narrative techniques.
- [Evelina Nevile](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/evelina_nevile.md): Heroine of Burney's novel, used to discuss epistolary form and character.
- [Mrs. Micawber](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/mrs_micawber.md): Character from Dickens's David Copperfield, exemplifying flat comic type.
- [Sir Willoughby](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/sir_willoughby.md): Egoistic hero from Meredith's The Egoist, analyzed for character flaws.
- [Mr. Asquith](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/mr_asquith.md): Historical figure referenced in discussions of political context in fiction.
- [Tolstoy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/tolstoy.md): Russian novelist, discussed for his epic scope and character depth.
- [Miss Bates](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/miss_bates.md): Garrulous character from Austen's Emma, exemplifying flat comic type.
- [Stephen Dedalus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/stephen_dedalus.md): Protagonist from Joyce's works, used to discuss modernist character.
- [George Eliot](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/george_eliot.md): Novelist, discussed for her psychological realism and moral vision.
- [Samuel Richardson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/samuel_richardson.md): Epistolary novelist, discussed for his psychological character development.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters