# The Inferno — Character guide

> Key figures in The Inferno by August Strindberg.

- [The Unknown](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/unknown_narrator.md): A nameless doctor and self-styled secret friend who records his descent through sleeplessness, dread, and visions, asking whether his life is a bad joke or a punishment for forgotten sins.
- [August Strindberg](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/strindberg_august.md): The author who turns his own daily journal into evidence, insisting that his hell on earth is not invention but an elaborated extract of real torment.
- [Swedenborg](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/swedenborg.md): The mystic whose hells mirror the narrator's own landscape — crater, pigsty, ravine — convincing him that earth itself is the dungeon of the damned.
- [Popoffsky](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/popoffsky.md): A mysterious figure encountered during the narrator's wanderings in Paris.
- [Job](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/job.md): Biblical figure invoked as a model of suffering and patience.
- [Providence](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/providence.md): The inscrutable force that rewards virtue with the cross, the stake, and dreadful dreams, arranging coincidences the narrator cannot dismiss as chance.
- [Christina](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/christina.md): A woman associated with the narrator's past sins and guilt.
- [The Dane](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/the_dane.md): A fellow traveler and acquaintance in the narrator's European exile.
- [Saul](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/saul.md): Biblical king referenced as a parallel to the narrator's spiritual blindness.
- [Christ](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/christ.md): The suffering redeemer against whom the narrator measures his own trials, wondering whether God is Science Itself or only the Punisher of unknown sins.
- [The Eternal](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/the_eternal.md): God as the narrator experiences him — a punishing, hidden presence whose justice looks indistinguishable from cruelty, driving the soul toward conversion or despair.
- [Madame Blavatsky](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/madame_blavatsky.md): Occultist whose theosophical ideas influence the narrator's worldview.
- [David](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/david.md): Biblical king and psalmist, a figure of repentance and divine favor.
- [The Devil](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/the_devil.md): In the narrator's hellish visions, the Devil presides as both accuser and prosecutor, the power who condemns mortals to wickedness and rewards virtue with sleeplessness and dreadful dreams. He works through a Babel of au
- [Nietzsche](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/nietzsche.md): Philosopher whose ideas on suffering and power are debated.
- [Luther](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/luther.md): Reformer whose theological struggles mirror the narrator's own.
- [Sar Peladan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/sar_peladan.md): Occultist and writer referenced in the narrator's esoteric interests.
- [Sphinx](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/sphinx.md): Mythical creature symbolizing mystery and the narrator's riddles.
- [St. Vincent de Paul](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/st_vincent_de_paul.md): Saint invoked as a model of charity and spiritual guidance.
- [Orpheus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/orpheus.md): Mythical poet who descends to the underworld, paralleling the narrator.
- [Dante](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/dante.md): Poet whose Divine Comedy inspires the book's structure and themes.
- [Balzac](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters/balzac.md): Novelist mentioned in passing during the narrator's literary reflections.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inferno_se/characters