# Those Barren Leaves — Character guide

> Key figures in Those Barren Leaves by Aldous Huxley.

- [Mr. Cardan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/those_barren_leaves_se/characters/mr_cardan.md): Cardan drifts through Mrs. Aldwinkle's villa as its most amused and least illusioned guest, forever cadging, appraising, and puncturing other people's romantic self-importance. He confesses that love, debt, and drink hav
- [Mary Thriplow](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/those_barren_leaves_se/characters/miss_thriplow.md): Mary Thriplow performs the role of the advanced, unprejudiced modern woman until Cardan's outrageous talk makes her retreat into the prim serious novelist with a good heart. She wants her books read as tragedy and tender
- [Irene](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/those_barren_leaves_se/characters/irene.md): At eighteen and young for her age, Irene adores Aunt Lilian and dutifully paints watercolours and writes verses because her aunt insists art justifies existence. Yet she secretly suspects her chain-stitch beats her paint
- [Mrs. Aldwinkle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/those_barren_leaves_se/characters/mrs_aldwinkle.md): Mrs. Aldwinkle presides over her villa as a self-appointed patroness, encouraging every young guest toward painting, poetry, or music and repeating words like 'disinterested' when phrases fail her. Her earnest cult of Ar
- [Mr. Calamy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/those_barren_leaves_se/characters/mr_calamy.md): Calamy can lose himself in wondering how a hand exists in so many different ways, until solid things vanish and the ground seems to split with abysses. Mary loves him with a fierceness that bites and cajoles, while he re
- [Lord Hovenden](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/those_barren_leaves_se/characters/lord_hovenden.md): When crisis strikes, Lord Hovenden is dispatched to Rome to fetch a specialist, dutifully writing down the talismanic name and confessing he is 'no good at ve language.' His blushing evasions about his own English doctor
- [Miss Elver](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/those_barren_leaves_se/characters/miss_elver.md): Grace Elver is the harmless idiot whose arrival Mrs. Chelifer greets as a compensation for abandoned good works, while the rest of the party dismisses her as Mr. Cardan's half-wit. Too simple to be interesting — simplici
- [Mr. Elver](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/those_barren_leaves_se/characters/mr_elver.md): Philip Elver appears at the villa too broken-down and ill to lift his coffee cup, goaded into a single gulp by his sister's cheerful urging to eat. His collapse — the unfrocked cleric, the man too melancholy to speak — s
- [Mr. Chelifer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/those_barren_leaves_se/characters/mr_chelifer.md): Francis Chelifer narrates his own arrival among Mrs. Aldwinkle's guests, first glimpsing her as a flame-coloured Chinese lantern under a green parasol on the Tyrrhenian Sea. He is a man of resolutions — never to touch an
- [Barbara Waters](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/those_barren_leaves_se/characters/barbara_waters.md): Barbara belongs to the remembered life Chelifer carries into Mrs. Aldwinkle's salon, a touchstone of authenticity set against the theatrical versions of experience the villa manufactures. Her presence in his narrative gi
- [Mr. Falx](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/those_barren_leaves_se/characters/mr_falx.md): Mr. Falx presides at Mrs. Aldwinkle's table with the air of a minor prophet — flowing white hair, aquiline nose, dark liquid eyes — and Lord Hovenden hangs on his every word. Born mid-century and briefly destined for eng
- [Aunt Lilian](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/those_barren_leaves_se/characters/aunt_lilian.md): Aunt Lilian urges Irene to enjoy herself and let herself go, then recruits her as a spy in her own feverish campaign to learn whether Chelifer mentions her name. Her bantering questions about Irene's suitors, her nightly
- [Miss Masson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/those_barren_leaves_se/characters/miss_masson.md): One of the Aldwinkle circle's quieter fixtures, Miss Masson belongs to that rarer class of women whose devotion is patient, orchid-bearing, and impossible to escape cleanly. She laughs at her own small jokes, looks up fo
- [Miss Carruthers](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/those_barren_leaves_se/characters/miss_carruthers.md): A lively and outspoken young woman among the villa guests.
- [Mr. Bosk](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/those_barren_leaves_se/characters/mr_bosk.md): An older gentleman who is part of the villa's social circle.
- [Grace Elver](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/those_barren_leaves_se/characters/grace_elver.md): Mr. Elver's other daughter, less prominent than her sister.
- [Mrs. Cloudesley Shove](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/those_barren_leaves_se/characters/mrs_cloudesley_shove.md): A literary woman who is a friend of Mrs. Aldwinkle.
- [Mrs. Chelifer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/those_barren_leaves_se/characters/mrs_chelifer.md): Francis Chelifer's mother, mentioned in his autobiography.
- [Mr. Brimstone](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/those_barren_leaves_se/characters/young_mr_brimstone.md): A minor character, possibly a suitor or acquaintance of the Elver family.
- [Fluffy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/those_barren_leaves_se/characters/fluffy.md): A pet dog belonging to one of the characters at the villa.
- [Y](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/those_barren_leaves_se/characters/y.md): A mysterious figure referenced in a philosophical or literary context.

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