# The Mother — Six Characters in Search of an Author character guide

> The Mother in Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello.

**Role:** major

**Also known as:** The Mother Startled

**First appearance:** 0000-dramatis-personae

## Snapshot

A crushed, black-veiled woman whose silent shame anchors the family's tragedy and whose real name the Manager refuses to use.

## Who they are

She enters the theatre last, eyes downcast, dressed in modest black under a thick widow's veil, as if bowed by an intolerable weight of shame. Estranged from the Father and divided between the Son who rejects her and the Step-Daughter who accuses her, she speaks little and suffers much, her wax-like face revealing everything the others argue about. When the Manager insists on casting an actress to play her and renaming her Amalia, her passive endurance becomes the still center around which the characters' competing versions of the past collide.

## Relationships

### [The Son](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/six_characters_in_search_of_an_author_se/characters/the_son)

_family_

A strained mother-son relationship marked by the son's resentment and the mother's guilt over past abandonment.

### [The Father](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/six_characters_in_search_of_an_author_se/characters/the_father)

_family_

A broken marriage defined by the father's coldness, the mother's suffering, and their shared tragedy over the children.

### [The Manager](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/six_characters_in_search_of_an_author_se/characters/the_manager)

_professional_

The manager shows some pity for the mother's grief but remains focused on the practicalities of staging the play.

### [The Step-Daughter](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/six_characters_in_search_of_an_author_se/characters/the_step_daughter)

_family_

A painful stepmother-stepdaughter bond poisoned by the step-daughter's contempt and the mother's helpless guilt.

### [The Child](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/six_characters_in_search_of_an_author_se/characters/the_child)

_family_

A tender but tragic mother-daughter bond, as the child is the mother's youngest and dies by drowning.

### [The Actors](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/six_characters_in_search_of_an_author_se/characters/the_actors)

_professional_

The actors regard the mother with a mix of pity and impatience as she weeps through the rehearsal.

### [The Boy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/six_characters_in_search_of_an_author_se/characters/the_boy)

_family_

A neglected mother-son relationship; the boy is withdrawn and eventually commits suicide, unnoticed by the mother.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/six_characters_in_search_of_an_author_se/characters/the_mother
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/six_characters_in_search_of_an_author_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/six_characters_in_search_of_an_author_se/characters