# Mary — Poetry character guide

> Mary in Poetry by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Ann Jess, the Hannah

**First appearance:** 0048-mary-at-the-feet-of-christ

## Snapshot

A mother whose weary soul finds its long-sought communion in a first-born child, and whose names echo both the Virgin's blessing and the slave woman's sorrow.

## Who they are

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.

## In the story

### [Mary at the Feet of Christ](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_7_se/chapters/mary-at-the-feet-of-christ)

A penitent woman who washes Jesus' feet with her tears and anoints them with ointment, seeking forgiveness and finding peace.

### [25th Anniversary of the “Old Folks’ Home”](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_7_se/chapters/25th-anniversary-of-the-old-folks-home)

Faithful and constant in her sacred charge of helping the home.

### [Going East](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_7_se/chapters/going-east)

The bride who longs for her mother and home in the East.

### [The Resurrection of Jesus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_7_se/chapters/the-resurrection-of-jesus)

Mary seeks Jesus' body at the tomb, finds it empty, and is the first to witness the risen Christ, whom she initially mistakes for a gardener.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_7_se/characters/mary
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_7_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_7_se/characters