Fred Kinney

Fred Kinney belongs to the working, get-ahead generation of the town, the kind of young man who actually builds things while George lounges on his family's reputation. His friction with George — over work, over pride, and eventually over the same girl — exposes how hollow Amberson nobility looks to anyone who has to earn a living. He matters because he is the unglamorous foil whose competence quietly indicts George's idleness, and whose presence sharpens the novel's argument about what the future actually rewards.