Character guide

Pollyanna Whittier

major

Also known as Pollyanna, Polly, Miss Pollyanna, Polly anna, May

Pollyanna arrives in Boston practically cured of the injury that once left her unable to walk, but her famous optimism meets its strangest test yet in Mrs. Carew's gloomy mansion. She writes stories that keep coming back rejected, hides the disappointments from her ailing aunt, and finds her glad game turning oddly painful when she plays it for Jamie's sake. Her inability to simply enjoy her own comforts while Jamie lacks them is what quietly begins to thaw Mrs. Carew's frozen heart.

Aunt Polly

major

Also known as Polly, Mrs. Polly Chilton, Mrs. Chilton, Polly Chilton, Mary

Once the stern woman who took in an orphan out of duty, Aunt Polly now depends on Pollyanna far more than she admits, fretting over rainy days, leaking roofs, and letters that arrive too late. She is methodical to the tick of the clock and openly skeptical of gladness on a wet morning, yet her neediness binds Pollyanna's days to the house. Her slow decline is the quiet weight against which Pollyanna's cheerfulness must prove itself, not merely perform.

Jimmy Pendleton

major

Also known as Jimmy Bean, Jimmy, Pendleton, Jimmy Pendleton, Jim

Jimmy has grown from the spirited orphan boy into an anxious young man whose visions of wonderful spans have been replaced by the fear of losing Pollyanna. He resents the unknown Jamie with the too-similar name before ever laying eyes on him, and his jealousy shames him even as it drives him. When he carries Pollyanna from danger in the pasture, he realizes how precious she is, and how much Jamie's watching face may already have cost him.

Jamie Kent

major

Also known as Jamie, James Kent, Kent, the lost Jamie, Sir James

Jamie turns to Pollyanna with a relief he shows no one else, because she alone once knew what it was to be unable to walk. Beneath his gaiety Pollyanna detects a new bitterness, and he avoids the others, sighing with relief when he is alone with her. His dependence on her understanding deepens just as Jimmy's jealousy sharpens, placing Pollyanna at the center of a quiet, unspoken rivalry.

Mrs. Carew

major

Also known as Ruth Carew, Ruth, Carew, Mrs. Ruth Carew

Mrs. Carew has walled herself off from society and charity alike since losing Jamie, refusing her nurse sister's pleas to get interested in something outside her own life. She takes in Pollyanna and finds the child's constant mourning over another Jamie unbearable, snapping that the glad game ought to fix it. Yet the very boy she insists is not her sister's son haunts her with panicky doubts, and her reluctant Christmas generosity is the first sign of a heart reawakening.

John Pendleton

supporting

Also known as John, young Pendleton, Pendleton, Mr. Pendleton

John Pendleton remembers the stern, disagreeable man he was before Pollyanna's childish liking saved him, and he tells her so with a tenderness that visibly alarms her. Having adopted Jimmy, he still insists a child's presence is not enough, and he has made up his mind to have the woman's hand and heart he once lost. His confession lands on Pollyanna as a proposal she never saw coming, and her stammering retreat toward the door is its own small comedy of misreading.

Della Wetherby

supporting

Also known as Della, Miss Wetherby, Miss Della Wetherby

Della Wetherby sweeps into her sister's gloomy Commonwealth Avenue mansion radiating health and capability, cheerfully overriding the maid's protests that Mrs. Carew is seeing no one. Where Ruth clings to eight years of mourning for a lost son, Della insists on action, sympathy, and the search that moping cannot accomplish. Her visits crack open the shut-in world of the Carew household, making her the human bridge by which Pollyanna eventually enters it.

Nancy

supporting

Nancy arranges flowers in every room, coaxes the household along, and hovers with pleas to be allowed to help out a bit at any time. When Aunt Polly faces dwindling income and the shame of near-poverty in Beldingsville, Nancy's loyalty becomes a quiet counterweight to the old woman's bitter pride. Her small domestic devotions register the human cost of the family's fall and the warmth that survives it.

Sadie Dean

supporting

Also known as Sadie, Sarah, Mercy

When Pollyanna meets Sadie again after six years, the features are the same but everything else has changed: hair, dress, disposition, all of it. Sadie belongs to the Carew household circle, and her visible transformation quietly testifies to what Pollyanna's influence has accomplished in Boston. She matters as living evidence that the game works, and as a friend whose own story shadows the novel's larger questions about who gets rescued and who does the rescuing.

Jerry Murphy

supporting

Also known as Jerry

Jerry Murphy climbs the steps of Mrs. Carew's mansion not for money but for Pollyanna, whose help his friend Jamie desperately wants. His flash of resentment when offered coin, and his awe at riding in a limousine, capture the class distance he crosses on Jamie's behalf. He is the messenger who carries the news that cracks open the Carew family mystery, and his loyalty to Jamie gives the alley world its dignity.

Dr. Chilton

supporting

Also known as Dr. ¬ÝChilton, April Dr. Chilton

Dr. Chilton cheerfully credits Pollyanna with transforming Mrs. Snow, John Pendleton, and half of Beldingsville, while Aunt Polly insists the child must never learn she is a cure-all. Their debate over whether to protect or celebrate Pollyanna's power shapes the decision to take her abroad to Germany. As both physician and husband, he embodies the novel's worry that goodness, once self-conscious, spoils.

John Kent

supporting

Also known as Kent

John Kent's identity surfaces through the tangled clues surrounding Jamie, the lame boy in Murphy's Alley who cannot remember his mother and whose father died without revealing his name. His disappearance is the wound that turned Ruth Carew's house into a tomb and set Della searching. Until he is found, he exists as absence and hope, the reason the novel's central reunion matters.

Thomas Chilton

minor

Also known as Thomas, Tom

A relative of Aunt Polly's who appears briefly.

Mrs. Murphy

minor

Also known as Murphy

Jerry's mother, a poor Irish widow in the tenements.

Mrs. Snow

minor

A bedridden, complaining woman whom Pollyanna cheers up.

Dr. Ames

minor

A Boston doctor who treats Jamie and advises Mrs. Carew.

Mrs. Durgin

minor

Also known as Timothy, Mrs. Timothy Durgin

A boarding house keeper who hosts Pollyanna in Boston.

Milly Snow

minor

Also known as Milly

Mrs. Snow's daughter who cares for her mother.

Perkins

minor

Also known as the scowling Perkins

John Pendleton's stern but loyal servant.

Doris Wetherby

minor

Also known as Doris

Della Wetherby's younger sister who visits briefly.

Susie Smith

minor

Also known as Susan

A friend of Pollyanna's from the village.

Jennie

minor

A girl mentioned in passing as a childhood friend.

Tommy Dolan

minor

Also known as Thomas, Dolan

A young boy from Murphy's Alley who knows Jerry.

Bridget

minor

A servant in the Carew household.

Nellie Mahoney

minor

A young girl from the tenements who appears briefly.

Old Mrs. Tibbits

minor

An elderly neighbor in Beldingsville.

Mr. Carew

minor

Mrs. Carew's deceased husband, mentioned in backstory.

Uncle John

minor

A relative of the Pendleton family mentioned briefly.

Uncle Tom

minor

A minor relative mentioned in passing.

Henry Dodge

minor

Also known as Henry, Harry

A young man who briefly courts Sadie Dean.

Betty

minor

A servant girl in the Carew household.

Joe

minor

Also known as Cross Joe

A grumpy man in Murphy's Alley who knows Jerry.

Mumsey

minor

Jerry Murphy's affectionate term for his mother.