# The Speaker — The Crowd character guide

> The Speaker in The Crowd by Gustave Le Bon.

**Role:** major

**Also known as:** the speaker

**First appearance:** 0002-the-crowd

## Snapshot

The cool analytical voice dissecting crowds as if they were a single organism, insisting that a thousand strangers in a square are not yet a crowd.

## Who they are

This is the treatise's guiding intelligence, a nineteenth-century observer who distinguishes the everyday crowd from the psychological crowd formed when individual personalities dissolve into one collective mind. He argues that a nation can become a crowd without assembling, and half a dozen men can constitute one, unsettling any easy faith in the rational individual. His voice carries the book's early arc, teaching the reader to see suggestion, contagion, and unconscious drives beneath public life.

## In the story

### [The Reasoning Power of Crowds](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_crowd_se/chapters/2-the-reasoning-power-of-crowds)

The orator who influences crowds by evoking images and using simple analogies, rather than logical reasoning.

### [II: The Immediate Factors of the Opinions of Crowds](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_crowd_se/chapters/ii-the-immediate-factors-of-the-opinions-of-crowds)

Mentioned as the orator who must adapt to the sentiments of the crowd in real time to be effective.

### [Images, Words, and Formulas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_crowd_se/chapters/1-images-words-and-formulas)

Implied as the archetypal leader or statesman who must skillfully employ words to influence crowds.

### [The Leaders of Crowds](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_crowd_se/chapters/1-the-leaders-of-crowds)

The narrative voice that analyzes the psychology and types of crowd leaders.

### [The Means of Action of the Leaders: Affirmation, Repetition, Contagion](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_crowd_se/chapters/2-the-means-of-action-of-the-leaders-affirmation-repetition-contagion)

Implied as the leader who uses affirmation, repetition, and contagion to influence crowds.

### [Criminal Juries](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_crowd_se/chapters/iii-criminal-juries)

The author/narrator who analyzes jury psychology and defends the jury system against critics.

### [IV: Electoral Crowds](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_crowd_se/chapters/iv-electoral-crowds)

The orator who uses persuasive techniques such as affirmation, repetition, and prestige can sway electoral crowds.

### [Parliamentary Assemblies](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_crowd_se/chapters/v-parliamentary-assemblies)

The speaker's success in a parliamentary assembly depends almost solely on prestige, not arguments; a speaker without prestige fails to gain attention or influence votes.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_crowd_se/characters/the_speaker
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_crowd_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_crowd_se/characters