Narrator
41-year-old narcissistic pawnbroker who sees in a sixteen year old orphan girl with a gentle spirit the perfect opportunity to enact his dreams of control and authority over another. His narration is in line with the majority of first-person males detailing their history in Dostoevsky’s fiction: brittle in emotion and with a creeping paranoia teetering on the edge of a kind of madness.
The Gentle Creature
The title character is a 16 year old girl forced to live with aunts since both parents died. She is a frequent visitor to the pawn shop owned by the narrator and he is taken with her innocence. After marriage, her gentle disposition gradually begins to give way to a tougher exterior which leads to quarrels and sneaky behavior before she falls ill and ultimately throws herself out a window to her death.
Lukerya
The maid for the relatives with whom the gentle creature lives. She provides information to the narrator about the young woman’s living conditions and inspires him to take her away from the family with the offer of marriage.
