# Berenice — Short Fiction character guide

> Berenice in Short Fiction by Edgar Allan Poe.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** the changed Berenice

**First appearance:** 0011-berenice

## Snapshot

A once-radiant cousin whose wasting illness transforms her into a spectral figure, fixing her betrothed's gaze on the one part of her that remains alive.

## Who they are

Berenice and her cousin Egaeus are pledged to marry, though his love has curdled into something closer to monomaniacal observation. Illness hollows her face and body until no vestige of her former self remains, yet her teeth gleam with an unsettling persistence. In the misty twilight of the library, her voiceless presence becomes the object of a curiosity that will consume him.

## In the story

### [Berenice](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_14_se/chapters/berenice)

Cousin of Egaeus; suffers from a fatal disease causing epilepsy and trances; her physical and mental decay becomes the object of Egaeus's obsessive fixation.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_14_se/characters/berenice
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- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_14_se/characters