Character guide

Unknown Narrator

major

Also known as thy, thee, myself, Mine, Your

She moves through the big house and the cabins with quiet eyes, marking how old Mistus prays for the Confederacy while Uncle Jacob prays for freedom in the quarters. Her hope is a poultice on a dreadful pain, and her sharp reading of Mistus's face tells her which way the war is turning before the newspapers do. Through her, the private grief of slavery and the public rupture of the nation become one story.

Moses

major

Also known as The Parting Moses

He stands at the far edge of the book's imagination, the liberator whose story of plagues, parting waters, and a freed people shadows every cry for justice in the American present. Harper returns to him as proof that God hears the groaning of the oppressed and that tyrants do not last. His presence turns contemporary suffering into sacred history still unfolding.

Pharaoh

supporting

He is the archetypal oppressor, deaf to suffering until destruction sweeps his land and the wings of dark destruction stretch from strand to strand. In Harper's hands his story becomes a mirror held up to slaveholding America, a nation warned that its own night of death is being written. He matters because his fall is the poem's promise that no empire built on cruelty stands forever.

The People

supporting

Also known as the People, ye, Their, their

They are the many rather than the one: the lonely wanderer, the hunted sister sent back to slavery, the mourners clasping pale fingers over the dead. Their grief is communal, and so is their hope, voiced in the cabins while the master prays in the parlor. Harper uses them to insist that justice is the right of every race and that the cry of a people cannot be silenced.

Princess Charmian

supporting

Also known as Charmian

She exists in the poem as memory and blessing, the hand that pressed something sacred on the speaker's brow and first taught him how to wear his manhood as a crown. The world has since given him honor, wealth, and laurels, but none of it outweighs the thoughts that gather round her name. Her quiet faith is the moral foundation on which the speaker's public life rests.

Christ

major

Also known as The tender loving Christ

He appears not as doctrine but as relief: the words thy sins are all forgiven landing like music on a soul that had grown weary with its many cares. For the mother in The Mother's Blessing, God's mercy arrives through a first-born child, a blest evangel through the gates of light and life. He matters because Harper's vision of justice is finally a vision of grace, and every cry for freedom leans on his tenderness.

Jesus

supporting

In Harper's narrative poems, Jesus moves through scenes of urgent need — a Syrophenician mother kneeling in anguish, a slave mother's shriek rising unanswered, a martyred child dying for his name. He is at once the source of healing and a figure who withholds, whose initial silence before the pleading woman sharpens the drama of faith. His presence anchors the collection's argument that divine justice stands against slavery's cruelty, making him the moral center against which the poems measure a complicit church.

Israel

supporting

Israel functions in these poems as both a historical nation and a living rebuke — the 'lost and scattered sheep' Jesus claims to seek, and the people whose deliverance from Egypt prefigures every cry for freedom. Harper turns the nation's story into a measuring rod: a land that calls itself Christian while holding slaves makes 'heathens at your doors.' Israel's longing for restoration gives the collection its prophetic spine, linking ancient bondage to present chains.

Rhadma

supporting

Rhadma hovers at the edge of Harper's poems as a consciousness that gathers evidence — the fleeing mother, the broken household, the scales brought forth to weigh a soul against gold and gems. The tension lies in what such witnessing costs: to see clearly is to be implicated, to measure truly is to find the world wanting. This figure matters because the collection's moral force depends on someone refusing to look away, insisting that a soul outweighs every mine and crown.

Mistus

supporting

Also known as old Mistus, Old Mistus

Old Mistus rules her household with affection for her bright boy Thomas and a blind loyalty to the Southern cause, praying in her parlor for Confederate victory while Chloe and Uncle Jacob pray in the cabins for deliverance. Her tragedy is intimate: she gives up Thomas to the war with sighs and tears, trembling at Fort Sumter news, unable to see that the system she defends will cost her everything. She embodies the slaveholder's moral blindness, and her slow unraveling mirrors the Confederacy's own.

Simon

supporting

Simon belongs to the circle of early believers whose faith was tested by watching and waiting — the same posture Uncle Jacob urges on Chloe when he says slavery is bound to pass away. In Harper's hands, such figures carry the weight of patient conviction, the trust that God's justice moves even when evidence is thin. His role in the collection is to remind readers that deliverance has always required those willing to wait, watch, and pray without letting courage fail.

Mary

supporting

Also known as Ann Jess, the Hannah

Mary appears across Harper's poems as the figure of maternal devotion — the soul grown weary with cares, longing for kindred understanding, then lifted by the gift of a child whose tiny hands bring smiles and tears. Her aliases, Ann Jess and the Hannah, suggest she also stands among enslaved women whose motherhood is threatened by sale and violence. She matters because Harper locates the collection's deepest argument in the mother's love: what a society does to that bond measures its soul.

Uncle Jacob

minor

An older male character, likely a slave or family elder.

Mister Thomas

minor

Also known as dearest Thomas

A male character addressed affectionately, possibly a slave or family member.

Rizpah

minor

Biblical figure who guards the bodies of her sons, a symbol of maternal grief.

Jethro

minor

Moses' father-in-law, a priest of Midian who offers counsel.

Aunt Chloe

minor

Also known as Chloe

An older female slave or domestic figure in the narrative.

Brother Benny

minor

Also known as Bennie

A young male character, possibly a sibling or friend.

The Hero

minor

A generic heroic figure, possibly representing an ideal or specific person.

Our Hero

minor

Also known as Our Hero

A heroic figure central to the narrative, possibly a martyr or leader.

Master

minor

Generic term for a slave owner or authority figure.

Egypt

minor

The land of Egypt, often personified as a character.

Aaron

minor

Moses' brother and high priest of Israel.

Joshua

minor

Moses' successor who leads Israel into Canaan.

Jakey

minor

Also known as O Jakey

A young male character, possibly a child or slave.

Our Faithful Martyr Hero

minor

A martyr figure, possibly representing a specific historical person.

Miriam

minor

Moses' sister, a prophetess who leads the women in song.

Mister Lincoln

minor

Also known as Lincoln

President Abraham Lincoln, referenced in the context of emancipation.

Lo

minor

An exclamation personified, possibly a poetic device.

Death

minor

Personification of death, a recurring figure in the narrative.

Jamie

minor

Also known as little Jamie

A young child, possibly a son or nephew.

Father

minor

Also known as Dear Father

A paternal figure, possibly God or a human father.

Sarah

minor

Also known as Sarah Pennock

A female character, possibly a slave or biblical figure.

Uncle Caldwell

minor

An older male character, likely a slave or family member.

Vashti

minor

Biblical queen who refuses to appear before the king, a symbol of defiance.

Joseph

minor

Also known as Joe

Biblical figure sold into slavery who rises to power in Egypt.

Two Brethren Striving

minor

Also known as two brethren striving For mastery

Two brothers in conflict, possibly representing Cain and Abel.

Horeb

minor

The mountain where Moses encounters the burning bush and receives the law.

Belshazzar

minor

Babylonian king who sees the handwriting on the wall.

Daniel

minor

Biblical prophet who interprets dreams and survives the lions' den.

Priests of On

minor

Also known as the priests of On

Egyptian priests from the city of On, possibly involved in religious conflict.

Pharaoh's Officers

minor

Also known as Pharaoh's officers

Officials serving under Pharaoh in the Egyptian court.

Jonas Handy

minor

A named character, possibly a slave or worker.

Zombi

minor

A character who dies, possibly a slave or mythical figure.

Nehemiah

minor

Biblical figure who rebuilds Jerusalem's walls.

Isis

minor

Egyptian goddess, referenced in the narrative.

Amorphel

minor

A named character, possibly a biblical or historical figure.

Poor Chloe

minor

Also known as Chloe

A female character in distress, possibly a slave.

Mizraim

minor

Biblical name for Egypt, sometimes personified.

Amram

minor

Father of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.

David Rand

minor

Also known as David

A named character, possibly a slave or free man.

Sinai

minor

The mountain where God gives the Ten Commandments.

Naomi

minor

Biblical figure, mother-in-law of Ruth, from the Book of Ruth.

The Valkyrs

minor

Norse mythological figures who choose slain warriors.

Tim Thompson

minor

A named character, possibly a slave or worker.

Eva

minor

A female character, possibly a child or young woman.

Nechos

minor

An Egyptian pharaoh, possibly Necho II.

Asenath

minor

Joseph's Egyptian wife, daughter of Potiphera.

Osiris

minor

Egyptian god of the underworld, referenced in the narrative.

Heth

minor

Biblical figure, ancestor of the Hittites.

Nebo

minor

Babylonian god of wisdom, or a mountain in Moab.

Aunt Kitty

minor

An older female character, likely a slave or domestic.

Milly Green

minor

A named female character, possibly a slave.

Ruth

minor

Biblical figure who stays with Naomi, from the Book of Ruth.

Gideon

minor

Biblical judge who defeats the Midianites.

Japan

minor

The country of Japan, possibly personified in the text.

Sparrow

minor

A bird, possibly personified or used as a symbol.