Character guide

Sam Dodsworth

major

Also known as Mr. Dodsworth, Samuel Dodsworth, Sam, the great Samuel Dodsworth

Sam Dodsworth is a large, friendly Midwesterner whose life has been engines, poker, and the comfortable habits of Tub Pearson. Retirement and a European tour with Fran expose a raw need he never named: for talk, for childishness, for a woman who will not measure him against a continent. His decency is his strength and his vulnerability, and the novel's early arc turns on whether the man who made things can survive being merely a tourist.

Fran Dodsworth

major

Also known as Fran, Fran Voelker, the luxurious Fran, Fran Dodsworth

Fran Dodsworth moves through Paris and Berlin with the brisk authority of a woman who has decided that Zenith was a mistake. She wants adoration, culture, and a self she can reinvent, and she finds Sam's lumbering sincerity increasingly embarrassing. Her restless dissatisfaction is the engine of the marriage's unraveling, and her letters and cool politenesses in the middle chapters show a woman negotiating her own escape while still spending her husband's money.

Edith Cortright

major

Also known as Edith

Edith Cortright is the counterweight to Fran: a woman who chose Europe deliberately and now sees its decay clearly. She offers Sam the unguarded conversation and unperformed warmth he has been starving for, and in doing so makes him imagine a life that is neither Fran's Europe nor a retreat to Zenith. Her honesty about her own compromises gives the middle of the novel its quiet moral center.

Kurt von Obersdorf

supporting

Also known as Kurt, Obersdorf, Count Obersdorf

Kurt von Obersdorf is the aristocrat Fran has been looking for: gracious, poor, and convinced of his own nobility. His chumminess with servants and his refusal of her electric range reveal a man whose pride is both genuine and brittle, and his relationship with Fran forces Sam to see his wife as a woman reborn into someone he no longer recognizes. Kurt matters because he is the test case for whether Europe can actually give Fran what she claims to want.

Major Clyde Lockert

supporting

Also known as Lockert, Clyde Lockert

Major Clyde Lockert is the kind of American Sam keeps running into in European bars and hotels: loud, self-assured, and fluent in the codes of a world Sam never learned. He represents the alternative version of the expatriate life, one of easy cynicism and social ease, and his presence sharpens Sam's sense of being outclassed in his own marriage's new milieu. He is a minor figure, but he helps map the social terrain Sam is failing to navigate.

Tub Pearson

supporting

Also known as Mr. Tub Pearson, old Tub, the Hon. Thomas J. Pearson

Tub Pearson and Sam have been habits to each other since boyhood, and Tub's arrival in Europe is a jolt of home that Sam desperately needs. But Tub has grown into new routines and new opinions, and Sam finds himself sometimes allied against his old friend rather than with him. Tub's visit measures how far Sam has drifted from Zenith, and how much of his old life was simply the comfort of unexamined companionship.

Matey Pearson

supporting

Also known as Matey, good old Matey, Pearson

Matey arrives in Paris as half of the Pearson pair, the solid Zenith couple whose first trip abroad Sam Dodsworth secretly orchestrates to surprise them at the Gare du Nord. She is fat, uninteresting by Fran's reckoning, and utterly without pretense — a woman whose chief travel anxieties are luggage, language, and being dragooned into acting as an unpaid guide. Her cheerful ordinariness throws Fran's restless self-invention into relief, and her presence keeps Sam tethered to the plain American life he understands.

Mr. A. B. Hurd

supporting

Also known as Hurd, Mr. Hurd, dear Mr. Hurd

Hurd is the kind of practical, well-placed American abroad that Sam Dodsworth instinctively trusts — a man who can be telephoned in London and asked to snoop at the Savoy porter for a train schedule. He represents the orderly commercial network Sam built his life on, the world of motor shows and Guaranty Trust mail windows that still treats him as someone who matters. His brief usefulness to Sam's Paris surprise quietly measures how far the wanderer has drifted from the certainties of work and home.

Brent

minor

Also known as the earnest young Brent

A young American man who travels with the Dodsworths' circle.

Emily

minor

Also known as Em, Dear Emily

A friend or relative of the Dodsworths, mentioned in correspondence.

Ross Ireland

minor

Also known as Ross, Ireland

An American acquaintance of Sam's, involved in business or travel.

Endicott Everett Atkins

minor

Also known as Mr. Atkins, Atkins, old Atkins

An older American businessman and friend of Sam's.

Arnold Israel

minor

Also known as Arnold, Israel, Damn Arnold Israel

A business associate or acquaintance of Sam Dodsworth.

Lycurgus Watts

minor

Also known as Lycurgus, Jerry Watts, Jerry Lycurgus Watts

A friend or business contact from Sam's past in Zenith.

Elon Richards

minor

Also known as Richards, Elon

An American acquaintance of the Dodsworths.

Renée de Pénable

supporting

Also known as Renée, Pénable, Madame de Pénable

Madame de Pénable presides over a salon of assorted European titles, a judicious freak or two, and the choicest American visitors, and she recognizes at once that Fran's naive freshness is a novelty her circle craves. She also sees that Sam, dull but devoted, will keep Fran from snatching the men Renée wants for herself, so she cultivates the Dodsworths with enthusiasm. Her glittering Paris — rides in the Bois, Burgundy lore, icy dancing haunts — becomes the hothouse where Fran's restlessness blooms and Sam first feels like a passenger in his own marriage.

Herman Voelker

minor

Also known as Herman, portly old Herman Voelker, Voelker

Fran's father, a wealthy businessman from Zenith.

Harry McKee

minor

Also known as Harry, McKee, Harry Mckee

An American acquaintance of Sam's, possibly a business colleague.

Nande Azeredo

minor

Also known as a Nande Azeredo

A Brazilian acquaintance of the Dodsworths in Europe.

Mathieu

minor

A French servant or acquaintance of the Dodsworths.

Herr Dr. Biedner

minor

Also known as Herr Biedner, Biedner, the good Herr Rechtsanwalt Biedner

A German lawyer or doctor encountered by the Dodsworths.

Captain Gioserro

minor

Also known as Gioserro, Gioserro the aviator

An Italian aviator met by the Dodsworths.

Theodor von Escher

minor

Also known as Theodor, Von Escher

A German acquaintance of the Dodsworths.

Princess Drachenthal

minor

Also known as the Princess Drachenthal

A European aristocrat met by the Dodsworths.

Baroness Volinsky

minor

Also known as the Baroness Volinsky, the Baroness

A European aristocrat in the Dodsworths' social circle.

Baron Ercole

minor

An Italian baron met by the Dodsworths.

Mrs. Alls

minor

A minor character, possibly a servant or acquaintance.

Princess Maravigliarsi

minor

Also known as the Princess Maravigliarsi

An Italian princess met by the Dodsworths.

Young Tom Allen

minor

Also known as Tom Allen, Tom, the ebullient Tom Allen

A young American man who socializes with the Dodsworths abroad.

Professor Braut

minor

Also known as Braut

A German academic or intellectual met by the Dodsworths.

Lady Ouston

minor

An English aristocrat and social acquaintance of Fran's.

Sheila Richards

minor

Also known as Sheila, Richards

A young woman in the Dodsworths' social circle.

Dr. Henry Hazzard

minor

Also known as Harry Hazzard, Hazzard, Dr. Hazzard

A doctor and acquaintance of the Dodsworths.

Herr Dr. Johann Josef Blumenbach

minor

Also known as Herr Blumenbach, Herr Dr. Blumenbach

A German intellectual met by Sam in Europe.

Jack Starling

minor

Also known as jack, Starling

An American acquaintance of Sam's.

Mr. Jack Keipp

minor

Also known as Mr. Keipp, Keipp, the sharp-nosed Mr. Keipp

A business associate of Sam Dodsworth.

Emmanuel White

minor

A minor character in the Dodsworths' social orbit.

Elizabeth Jane

minor

A relative or friend mentioned by the Dodsworths.

Old Pop Conover

minor

An older man from Sam's past in Zenith.

Mr. Clinton Gillespie

minor

Also known as Mr. Gillespie, Gillespie

An American acquaintance of Sam's.

Cecil R. A. Cortright

minor

Also known as the late Honorable Cecil R. A. Cortright, Cortright, Cecil

Edith Cortright's deceased husband, a British diplomat.

M. Andillet

minor

Also known as Andillet

A French acquaintance of the Dodsworths.

Frau Biedner

minor

Also known as Frau Dr. Biedner, Dr. Biedner

The wife of Herr Dr. Biedner.

Judge Turpin

minor

Also known as Judge

A judge and acquaintance from Sam's American life.

Billy Deacon

minor

Also known as Deacon, Bill Deacon

An American friend or business contact of Sam's.

Mr. Charley Short

minor

Also known as Mr. Short, Short

A minor American character in Sam's circle.

Lucile McKelvey

minor

A social acquaintance of the Dodsworths from Zenith.

M. Saurier

minor

Also known as Saurier

A French acquaintance of the Dodsworths.

Mr. Zip

minor

Also known as Zip

A minor character, possibly a nickname.

Mr. Meece

minor

A minor American character.

Mrs. Brown-Bloater

minor

A minor character mentioned in passing.

Old Granddaddy Sambo

minor

Also known as Sambo

A nickname for Sam Dodsworth used in a familial context.