Character guide

Unknown Narrator

major

Also known as your, mine, myself, yours

This narrator is the farm wife who discovers the worn-out Silas asleep against the barn and brings him inside, giving him tea and trying to coax him into talk. Her loyalty to the old man puts her at odds with Warren, who wants only to know whether Silas actually came to ditch the meadow. Her tender, stubborn defense of Silas's self-respect sets the emotional stakes of the household drama that follows.

Unknown Narrator 2

supporting

Also known as your, myself

This narrator moves through several poems as an observer and interlocutor, drawing out other people's stories rather than driving his own. He is curious, patient, and slightly detached, the kind of listener who notices how a man holds a stick or where a cloud crosses the moon. His presence gives the book its wandering, unhurried intimacy, letting readers overhear rural lives without being told what to feel.

Warren

supporting

Also known as himself, him

Warren is the household's skeptical counterweight, pressing Mary for facts about why Silas came and whether he really meant to work. He is not cruel, but he measures worth in labor and results, and Silas's decline unsettles him. His bluntness sharpens the poem's central argument about pride, kinship, and what one person owes another, and his final word lands with quiet devastation.

John Hall

supporting

Also known as John, himself

John Hall is a traveling academic, courteous and a little fastidious, thrown into an overnight intimacy with a loud, half-dressed stranger named Lafe. He wants only a bed and some quiet, but the encounter forces him into a wary negotiation of trust, class, and self-exposure. His discomfort and his grudging decency make the poem a small, sharp study of how strangers measure each other in the dark.

The Doctor

supporting

Also known as the doctor, The Doctor, The doctor, yourself, your

The Doctor attends the injured man and finds himself caught between a lawyer eager to close a settlement and a relative, Willis, who smells a dishonest trick. He is cautious, professional, and visibly reluctant to take sides, yet his few words carry weight in the room. His presence turns a domestic scene into a quiet reckoning over injury, compensation, and who gets to decide what a body is worth.

Anne

supporting

Also known as yourself, your, hers

Anne moves through the sickroom putting flowers in water while the men argue over documents and dollars, her grief and care held in small, precise gestures. She has a way with growing things that stands in for something she cannot name or recover, and the broken man depends on her steadiness. Her quiet presence exposes the gap between the legal transaction being signed and the human loss it cannot touch.

Silas

major

Also known as Poor Silas, Si, himself, him

Silas arrives at Warren and Mary's farmhouse worn past saving, yet insists he has come to ditch the meadow and offers a plan for the work. He has a wealthy brother nearby, a bank director, whom he has never once asked for help — a silence Mary reads as pride and Warren as something closer to worthlessness. His stubborn refusal of pity, and the question of why he chose this door over his brother's, is what the poem turns on.

Lafe

minor

Also known as your, mine, you, yours

A neighbor or acquaintance involved in rural exchanges.

Estelle

minor

Also known as herself, hers

A woman with a personal story in the poems.

Amy

supporting

Also known as your, you

Amy is walking a lonely highway at night when she meets a woman and child out past their bedtime, stopping for a fortnight at Dean's. The encounter unnerves her less for the strangers than for what they might think of her — she presses Joel to understand that they must be careful, that this is a very, very lonely place. Her agitation, and the lantern that clatters out at her feet, set the scene's quiet dread.

Willis

minor

A named character in the rural community.

Hades

minor

Mythological figure referenced in a poem.

Mary

minor

A woman mentioned in conversation or narrative.

Harold Wilson

minor

Also known as Harold, you

A named individual in the poems.

Mortenson

minor

A character mentioned in a rural anecdote.

Granny

minor

An elderly woman in the community.

Loren

minor

A named character in the poems.

Stark

minor

Also known as old Grandsir Stark, Grandsir Stark, old Grandsir

An older man referred to by family title.

James

minor

A named individual in the poems.

Jemima

minor

A woman mentioned in a poem.

Len

minor

A local man with a speaking role.

Bill Taft

minor

Also known as Will

A local man mentioned in conversation.

Joel

minor

A named character in the poems.

Mrs. Corbin

minor

A neighbor woman in the community.