# Metropolis — Character guide

> Key figures in Metropolis by Thea von Harbou.

- [Freder](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/characters/freder.md): Freder is heir to Joh Fredersen's empire, raised above the city's worker-masses until a glimpse of their suffering pulls him down into the machine halls and the subterranean depths where Maria's voice calls. His privileg
- [Joh Fredersen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/characters/joh_fredersen.md): Joh Fredersen commands from the New Tower, his fingers on the little blue metal plate that keeps the great Metropolis roaring and its workers punctual. He is a ruler of terrible precision, unmoved by the mangled souls be
- [Maria](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/characters/maria.md): Maria moves among the men of the lower city with a tenderness that makes her seem less a person than a promise, and when she speaks, even the dead-tired leave their rest to hear her. Freder first meets her as a voice in 
- [Rotwang](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/characters/rotwang.md): Rotwang works in the shadow of Joh Fredersen's city, a scientist whose genius is inseparable from his grievance, and whose inventions give him a power the masters of Metropolis do not fully understand. He is a man of old
- [Slim](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/characters/slim.md): Slim belongs to the night side of Metropolis, the quarter where the sons of the rich spend what the workers' hands have made, and he knows its currents better than anyone. He is neither master nor worker but a broker of 
- [Josaphat](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/characters/josaphat.md): Josaphat is the kind of man Joh Fredersen's world does not reward: loyal, unspectacular, and willing to leap from heaven to earth for a friend. When Freder is isolated behind the wall of his father's displeasure, Josapha
- [Georgi](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/characters/georgi.md): Georgi belongs to the blue-linen masses whose ten-hour shifts feed the great machines, and he is among the first to give that exhaustion a voice — crying out that Metropolis has gone dumb and that the workers are the man
- [Grot](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/characters/grot.md): Grot stands at the lever of the god-machine, the man whose hand keeps the city's mechanical heart beating through the long ten-hour shifts. He is both master and servant of the apparatus: when the great Metropolis sudden
- [Hel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/characters/hel.md): The deceased wife of Joh Fredersen and mother of Freder, often referenced.
- [Jan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/characters/jan.md): A worker or minor figure in the lower city.
- [Death](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/characters/death.md): A personified figure appearing in visions or symbolic scenes.
- [Maohee](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/characters/maohee.md): A character associated with the Yoshiwara district.
- [The Master of Metropolis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/characters/the_master_of_metropolis.md): A title for Joh Fredersen, emphasizing his absolute control.
- [Ganesha](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/characters/ganesha.md): A deity referenced in the context of the city's diverse cultures.
- [Desertus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/characters/desertus.md): A minor character or symbolic name in the narrative.
- [The Virgin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/characters/the_virgin.md): A religious figure referenced in the story.

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