Marie Rogers
She's the young protagonist, often believed to be a fictional counterpart for Smedley herself. Marie is an independent girl determined to overcome the economic and social circumstances of her birth in working class America to provide for herself professionally. Often torn between her own success and helping her struggling family, she has a lot of setbacks. Most importantly Marie is forced to start from scratch, over and over again, in her career and her relationships and even her homes. A firm believe in equality in marriage, she has several unsuccessful relationships and three failed marriages. She finds her true passion in New York with the Socialist Party and the Indian Independence Movement. She devotes herself to these causes for the working class, even though it lands her in great physical danger and even in jail.
John Rogers
He's Marie's dad. He works in Missouri as a lumberjack in a mining town. Needless to say his lot in life is grim, and he takes this out on his family. He never does become successful, although he tries to improve his own circumstances several times at great personal cost to his family. Remembering the example of marriage he set with Elly, her mom, Marie comes to believe that marriage is akin to slavery and really a detestable situation for a woman.
Aunt Helen
She lives with the Rogers family for some time. She tells John that she's working as a laundress, but really she's a prostitute. She enjoys the sexual autonomy she feels in her profession which is why she defends herself bitterly when John finds out about her true occupation. Despite having cared dearly for his children for as long as she's been living with the family, she is still kicked out by John for being a prostitute.
Annie Rogers
She's Marie's older sister who marries young. She's a spunky, determined young woman who finds her escape through marriage to her aunt's former lover, Sam Walker. Sadly she dies in chlid birth not long after her wedding.
Big Buck
He's an ex-cowboy who nurses Marie back to help after her rape in New Mexico. He proposes to her, but she doesn't love him. Although grateful for his caring heart and tenderness, she cannot see herself with a man as traditional as Buck.
Robert Hampton
He is Marie's pen-pal when she moves to New Mexico. She's never met him, but she dreams of marrying him and living out a fairy tale with him beside her, but when the finally meet she quickly learns that they have nothing in common. He's a great disappointment, especially since a life with him promised all the comforts of middle-class life.
Knut Larson
He and his sister, Karin, befriend Marie and move to San Francisco with her. Eventually Knut marries her, agreeing to an egalitarian division of power within their marriage. Marie has two abortions for Knut, after which second one he orders her to sit upright in a bus. Marie immediately divorces him, unwilling to stomach commands like that, especially after undergoing such a traumatic operation twice.
Karin Larsen
Karin invites Marie to live with her in New York after her marriage to Knut fails. Karin is a working class girl who keeps to herself mostly. She introduces Marie to the Socialist Party.
Anand Manvekar
Manvekar is Marie's second husband. They meet through their mutual interest in Socialism. He's a part of the Indian Independence Movement in which he engages Marie as well. Their marriage is soon strained because, despite his feminist beliefs, he is a very jealous man. When he learns of Marie's rape by Juan Diaz, he leaves her.
Juan Diaz
Diaz is a Christian who opposes the Indian Independence Movement. When he learns that Marie is keeping papers vital to that movement in her apartment, he breaks in and rapes her. This is before her marriage to Anand. She tries to commit suicide and is imprisoned for a time. When she is released, Marie is greeted by Diaz' endless blackmail which eventually tears her second marriage apart.
Talvar Singh
He is the one who gives Marie important documentation to safeguard. A leader among the Indians in New York, he trusts Marie to be distant enough not to be suspected to have these papers. He is arrested shortly after passing the documents.
