The Two Noble Kinsmen · Character

Daughter

The Gaoler's daughter, whose love for the imprisoned Palamon grows so consuming it eventually unseats her reason.

supporting

Also known as Daughter Nay

First appearance: Scene I

As a supporting figure in The Two Noble Kinsmen, Daughter is not background color—the story leans on what they do once the chapter opens.

Expresses admiration for the imprisoned princes and corrects her father's identification of them.

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She is a young woman of the Gaoler's household who falls for Palamon while he is held captive, and her passion runs far past what her station or his situation can return. Her devotion is both tender and destabilizing, a private obsession that will swell into a public spectacle of madness. She matters because her unrequited love shadows the play's aristocratic romances with a humbler, more desperate version of the same consuming force.

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See Daughter in Scene I

Character Web

14 connections

A slice of how Daughter sits in the book — open the reader for the full interactive map.

Relationship types

Other

Character groups

Courtly and Romantic Figures
Protagonist
Supporting and Theban Figures

+9 more in the full Character Web

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Narrative arc

Story tension across the book — this chapter sits in Exposition.

Setup
Escalation
Breaking point
Aftermath
Closing

This scene is the dramatic climax because it delivers the emotional and psychological peak of the cousins' riv…

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In the story

Daughter appears across 9 companion beats. Open any chapter in the free preview to see the notes beside the text.

Scene I
Expresses admiration for the imprisoned princes and corrects her father's identification of them.
Scene IV
The Gaoler's Daughter delivers a soliloquy expressing her love for Palamon and her plan to free him.
Scene VI
Expresses her love and desperation after freeing Palamon, planning to follow him.
Scene II
Alone in the forest, she is frantic and despairing, fearing Palamon has been eaten by wolves and contemplating her own death.
Scene IV
The Gaoler's Daughter appears alone, lost in the forest, speaking in a feverish and disjointed manner.
Scene V
The Gaoler's Daughter, now mad, joins the Morris dance and sings a fragment of a song.
Scene I
The Gaoler's daughter, driven mad by love for Palamon and fear for her father; sings and raves incoherently.
Scene III
Appears in a distracted state, raving about Palamon, Dido, and fantastical punishments in the afterlife.
Scene II
Mistakes the Wooer for Palamon, speaks of a fantastical horse, and plans a wedding at the world's end, showing her madness.

Chapter companion notes

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See Daughter in Scene I