# John Wingate — John Brown’s Body character guide

> John Wingate in John Brown’s Body by Stephen Vincent Benét.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** honest John, the Wingate

**First appearance:** 0005-book-i

## Snapshot

The Wingate patriarch, a Southern planter whose name and honor stand behind the family, the Hall, and the world the war will spend.

## Who they are

John Wingate is the Wingate of Wingate Hall — the name the family answers to, the man whose household Mary Lou runs with her tiny, rapier-strong hands. He belongs to the planter class Benét describes as generous slaveholders and gentlemen who neither force their gentility nor let it be held lightly. He matters because the Wingate world — its pillars, its traditions, its contradictions — is the South the poem loves and indicts, and he is its head.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/john_brown_s_body_se/characters/john_wingate
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/john_brown_s_body_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/john_brown_s_body_se/characters