Character guide

Winnie-the-Pooh

major

Also known as Pooh, Pooh Bear, Helpful Bear, Respectful Pooh

Pooh anchors the Forest's social world: he is the one everyone else visits, the bear whose front door is never quite wide enough for him. His appetite and his muddled arithmetic keep landing him in trouble, yet his slow, sideways thinking often rescues the day when cleverer animals have given up. In the book's early and middle chapters, his loyalty to Eeyore and his quiet understanding with Christopher Robin make him the story's warm center.

Piglet

major

Also known as little Piglet

Piglet lives halfway between Pooh's house and his own, at a Thoughtful Spot where the two of them sit and wonder what to do now that they have seen each other. He wants Reasons for things — Looking for Small, Organizing an Expotition — and worries that he is too small to matter. His quiet courage, and his willingness to nudge Pooh when Pooh cannot finish a sentence, make him the hinge on which several of the book's rescues turn.

Rabbit

supporting

Also known as the Left Signed Rabbit

Rabbit is the Forest's organizer, the one who wants plans and reasons and who suspects that Pooh and Piglet have come about something when they have only come to wish him a Very Happy Thursday. He is clever, and he has Brain, which Pooh notes is why he never understands anything. His fussy authority gives the book much of its comedy, and his schemes — especially involving a certain newcomer — drive several of its middle chapters.

Tigger

supporting

Also known as poor Tigger, little Tigger

Tigger arrives in the Forest in the middle of the night, introduces himself to Pooh, and mistakes his own reflection for another Tigger. He is cheerfully certain about his own tastes and cheerfully wrong about them, and his bouncing terrifies Piglet and exasperates Rabbit. His arrival unsettles the Forest's settled routines, and the question of what Tiggers actually like best becomes one of the book's running jokes.

Eeyore

supporting

Also known as poor Eeyore, floated Eeyore

Eeyore stands at the edge of the Forest, in his thistly field, announcing that it is snowing and freezing and that no one has seen his house. He protests that he does not complain, then complains at length, and brightens only to mention that there has not been an earthquake lately. His lost house and lost tail become the occasions for the others' kindness, and his melancholy gives the book its tenderest counterweight.

Christopher Robin

major

Also known as Christopher

Christopher Robin is the one the animals hurry to find, the boy who leads Expotitions and whose absence makes the Forest feel wrong. He is at home in the afternoon, glad to see Pooh and Piglet, and he drops everything to help Eeyore search for his house in the snow. His earnest, unfinished question to Pooh — 'if I'm not quite — you will understand, won't you?' — shadows the book's later chapters with the quiet knowledge that he is growing up.

Owl

supporting

Owl presides over his tree with the gravity of a scholar, dispensing pronouncements on wind, blame, and the Problem of Escape while quietly admiring his own letterbox. His authority is entirely unearned yet oddly comforting, and his habit of repeating explanations he has been waiting to give again makes him both absurd and endearing. When Pooh's house collapses around them, Owl is the one who names the crisis and demands a plan, making him the Forest's comic engine of order.

Roo

supporting

Roo moves through the Hundred Acre Wood as its youngest resident, tagging along on expeditions and adding his high, eager voice to Pooh's tiddely-poms. Sheltered by Kanga and endlessly fascinated by the bigger animals, he represents the uncomplicated wonder that the older characters keep stumbling over. His presence turns ordinary Forest happenings into adventures simply by being watched with fresh eyes.

Kanga

supporting

Kanga occupies a gentle authority in the Hundred Acre Wood, the one figure whose care for Roo never wavers amid everyone else's muddles. Where the other animals scheme and misremember, she simply tends, and her steadiness gives the Forest a domestic center it otherwise lacks. Her presence matters because it reminds the reader that the Wood is not only a place of adventures but also of being looked after.

Heffalump

minor

Also known as the Heffalump, a Heffalump, this Heffalump, Heffalump Eager, Fierce Heffalump

A mythical elephant-like creature that the animals fear and imagine.

Small

minor

A beetle who is a friend of Rabbit and helps with messages.

Backson

minor

Also known as Bisy Backson, a Backson

A mythical creature invented by Rabbit to explain Christopher Robin's absence.