Pollyanna

Pollyanna Whittier

Pollyanna enters Beldingsville as a charity case, outfitted by missionary barrels and handed off to an aunt who took her in from duty, not love. Her father taught her to hunt for gladness in every hardship, and she practices it relentlessly on servants, shut-ins, and strangers, often without realizing she is doing it. That habit collides with Aunt Polly's rigid household and slowly reorganizes the whole town's emotional weather, making Pollyanna both an irritant and an instrument of change in the novel's first half.

Aunt Polly Harrington

Miss Polly Harrington runs her household on schedule and self-control, granting her niece a room and a wardrobe but withholding warmth. Her stiffness masks old wounds, particularly around Dr. Chilton and the sister who married and left her behind. When Pollyanna begins softening the house, the cat, and even Miss Polly's own habits, the aunt must decide whether affection is a weakness or the thing she has been missing, which drives the emotional current of the middle chapters.

Nancy

Nancy works below stairs for a mistress she finds chilly and exacting, and she misses her mother and siblings with an ache she talks about freely. She is the first person in the house to treat Pollyanna as a person rather than a duty, trading stories on the back porch and nearly betraying Miss Polly's early reluctance. Her loyalty gives Pollyanna a confidante and gives readers a grounded, unpolished view of what the child is actually changing inside that house.

John Pendleton

John Pendleton is the town's richest and least sociable man, known for miserliness and a tongue sharp enough to keep visitors away. He once loved Pollyanna's mother, lost her to another man, and has been nursing the disappointment ever since, which makes his growing attachment to the child both tender and dangerous. His reluctant friendship with Pollyanna pulls him back into the world and sets up the question of what he will do with the affection he can no longer pretend not to feel.

Jimmy Bean

Jimmy Bean has no home, no parents, and a habit of announcing to anyone who will listen that he is looking for a place to belong. He meets Pollyanna on the road and becomes her project, a boy whose need for a family mirrors her own situation with Aunt Polly. His persistence and good nature make him the natural counterpart to the town's lonely adults, and his fate becomes one of the measures by which the story tests whether Pollyanna's gladness can actually change anything.

Dr. Thomas Chilton

Dr. Chilton is a broad-shouldered, gentle-mannered doctor who lives in rented rooms rather than a home, a fact Pollyanna seizes on and questions him about. He and Aunt Polly share a past that neither will discuss, and Miss Polly's sharpness at the mention of his name signals old hurt rather than indifference. His care for Pollyanna, and his willingness to be called when Miss Polly finally asks, positions him as the story's quiet hinge between the aunt's guarded present and the possibility of a warmer future.