# Fanny Elmer — Jacob's Room character guide

> Fanny Elmer in Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Fanny, poor Fanny Elmer

**First appearance:** 0005-vi

## Snapshot

An artist's model who builds Jacob out of postcards and museum statues, then finds the real man awkward, beautiful, and impossible to hold.

## Who they are

Fanny Elmer meets Jacob at the Empire and is undone by his awkwardness and his voice, imagining a childlike, majestic lover she could refuse to give way to. She sustains her idea of him on picture postcards and visits to the battered Ulysses in the British Museum, writing poems and letters she never posts. Her devotion measures the distance between Jacob as he is and Jacob as he is dreamed — a gap the novel keeps widening.

## Relationships

### [Jacob Flanders](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jacobs_room_se/characters/jacob_flanders)

_romantic_

Fanny is an artist who becomes infatuated with Jacob, pursuing him with hopeful devotion that is only partially reciprocated.

### [Nick Bramham](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jacobs_room_se/characters/nick_bramham)

_romantic_

Fanny briefly turns to Nick Bramham as a rebound after Jacob's indifference, but the relationship lacks genuine passion.

### [Nick Bramham](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jacobs_room_se/characters/nick_bramham)

_romantic_

Fanny briefly turns to Nick Bramham as a rebound after Jacob's indifference, but the relationship lacks genuine passion.

### [Jacob Flanders](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jacobs_room_se/characters/jacob_flanders)

_romantic_

Fanny is an artist who becomes infatuated with Jacob, pursuing him with hopeful devotion that is only partially reciprocated.

## In the story

### [Chapter X](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jacobs_room_se/chapters/x)

Visits Jacob, feels neglected, wanders London, sits for Nick Bramham, and experiences emotional turmoil.

### [XII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jacobs_room_se/chapters/xii)

Feels desperation over Jacob, thinks of drowning herself in the Thames.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jacobs_room_se/characters/fanny_elmer
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jacobs_room_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jacobs_room_se/characters