# Darkwater — Character guide

> Key figures in Darkwater by W. E. B. Du Bois.

- [The Narrator](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/darkwater_se/characters/narrator.md): This narrator is a traveler and remembering consciousness, at home in concert halls where Coleridge-Taylor lifts his baton and in Georgia depots where the ticket window refuses him. His desire is to hold beauty and injur
- [The Woman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/darkwater_se/characters/the_woman.md): She is less a single person than a lineage—the far-off grandmother sobbing for lost palm-trees, the bronzen grandmother scolding her laughing husband, the narrator's own mother with her velvet brownness. Her power is cou
- [The Stranger](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/darkwater_se/characters/the_stranger.md): He hovers at the edges of crowded rooms—the Pan-African meeting, the Crystal Palace throng—where history seems about to speak through ordinary faces. His tension is that he never quite declares himself; he is the questio
- [The Messenger](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/darkwater_se/characters/the_messenger.md): He speaks in the voice of Mount Desert's rock-ribbed silence and the sail-flecked sea, announcing that men should come to these shores to renew their spirit. Yet his message curdles when the narrator asks why the scarred
- [The Colonel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/darkwater_se/characters/the_colonel.md): A military authority figure appearing in scenes of conflict and command.
- [The Judge's Wife](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/darkwater_se/characters/the_judges_wife.md): A minor character representing Southern white womanhood in a courtroom scene.
- [Coleridge-Taylor](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/darkwater_se/characters/coleridge_taylor.md): A composer and cultural figure mentioned in discussions of Black artistry.
- [The Priest of Japan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/darkwater_se/characters/the_priest_of_japan.md): A symbolic figure representing Eastern spirituality in a philosophical passage.
- [Fortson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/darkwater_se/characters/fortson.md): A named individual appearing in a historical or personal anecdote.
- [Mother](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/darkwater_se/characters/mother.md): The narrator's mother, a figure in his personal history.
- [Grandfather Burghardt](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/darkwater_se/characters/grandfather_burghardt.md): The narrator's grandfather, part of the family lineage.
- [Jim Crow](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/darkwater_se/characters/jim_crow.md): Personification of segregation laws, appearing as a symbolic character.
- [David Livingstone](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/darkwater_se/characters/david_livingstone.md): Explorer and missionary referenced in a historical context.
- [Paul Laurence Dunbar](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/darkwater_se/characters/paul_laurence_dunbar.md): Poet and writer referenced as a cultural figure.

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