# The Hermit — Poetry character guide

> The Hermit in Poetry by Oscar Wilde.

**Role:** major

**Also known as:** hunted

**First appearance:** 0001-chapter

## Snapshot

A cloistered ascetic who abandons prayer for the temple of a marble goddess, trading holy terror for a night of forbidden, death-defying desire.

## Who they are

He is the poem's fevered narrator, a hermit whose devotions are shattered when he glimpses the pitiless chastity of a goddess's statue and returns by night to possess it. His passion is both sacrilege and worship: he kisses the cold ivory until dawn, well content to die for such a sight. His transgression sets the poem's central tension between renunciation and consuming appetite, and his flight afterward carries the reader into the second half of the tale.

## Relationships

### [The Young Man](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_18_se/characters/the_young_man)

_psychological_

The Hermit acts as a mysterious mentor and obsessive guide, drawing the Young Man into a secluded world of introspection and spiritual trials.

### [Love](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_18_se/characters/love)

_psychological_

Love and the Hermit are in a tense, philosophical struggle over the soul of the Young Man, representing desire versus renunciation.

### [The Young Man](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_18_se/characters/the_young_man)

_psychological_

The Hermit acts as a mysterious mentor and obsessive guide, drawing the Young Man into a secluded world of introspection and spiritual trials.

### [The Young Man](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_18_se/characters/the_young_man)

_psychological_

The Hermit acts as a mysterious mentor and obsessive guide, drawing the Young Man into a secluded world of introspection and spiritual trials.

## In the story

### [Vita Nuova](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_18_se/chapters/vita-nuova)

The speaker's voice aligns with a hermit-like figure reflecting on suffering and seeking redemption.

### [Le Jardin des Tuileries](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_18_se/chapters/le-jardin-des-tuileries)

The speaker, a solitary observer watching children play in the winter garden.

### [Poems in Prose](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_18_se/chapters/poems-in-prose)

Appears in the final poem; a hermit who once had perfect knowledge of God, refuses to give it to a young robber until the last moment, then weeps and is visited by a divine figure.

### [II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_18_se/chapters/ii)

The narrator, a prisoner observing the condemned guardsman.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_18_se/characters/the_hermit
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_18_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_18_se/characters