# Lonesome Ben — The Conjure Woman character guide

> Lonesome Ben in The Conjure Woman by Charles W. Chesnutt.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Ben

**First appearance:** 0009-lonesome-ben

## Snapshot

A homesick enslaved man who runs for the North, loses the North Star to rain, and circles back to the plantation a stranger to himself.

## Who they are

Ben leaves behind a wife, Dasdy, and a small boy, slipping into the woods with stolen bread and tar on his feet to throw off the hounds. He means to follow the North Star, but cloudy nights undo him, and after a week of walking he stumbles out of the woods at the very creek he started from. His story is the book's starkest image of what slavery does to a person's sense of direction—geographic, moral, and inward—and it lingers as one of Julius's darkest tellings.

## Relationships

### [Mars Dugal' McAdoo](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/mars_dugal_mcadoo)

_professional_

Lonesome Ben is a slave owned by Mars Dugal', often tasked with difficult labor and subject to his whims.

### [Mars Dugal' McAdoo](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/mars_dugal_mcadoo)

_professional_

Lonesome Ben is a slave owned by Mars Dugal', often tasked with difficult labor and subject to his whims.

### [Mars Dugal' McAdoo](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/mars_dugal_mcadoo)

_professional_

Lonesome Ben is a slave owned by Mars Dugal', often tasked with difficult labor and subject to his whims.

## In the story

### [Lonesome Ben](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/chapters/lonesome-ben)

The tragic central figure of Julius's story, a slave who becomes unrecognizable after punishment and hiding.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/lonesome_ben
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters