The one who asks the questions
In the poem "What they were like?’’ the first character is a man who asks a series of questions to a second man. His identity is not revealed but the idea that he is interested in the way the life of the people living in Vietnam was.
The one who answers
The one is answers is the second character in the poem "What they were like?’’. He listens to the first man and presents the way the war affected the Vietnamese people. He presents a compassionate point of view and shows how the war affected the people in a negative way.
The Vietnamese people
The Vietnamese people are a third category presented in the poem "What they were like?’’. They’re presented as peaceful people who suffered because their home country was affected by the war. Because of this, they can no longer experience happiness.
The man
In the poem "Clouds’’ the narrator describes a man which stays beside her. The man is described as being cold and the narrator is even scared of him. The man is almost described as being dead because of the coldness he has.
The snake
The major character in the poem entitled "To the snake’’ is the reptile the woman takes on her shoulders and wraps around her neck. The narrator hopes the snake will not hurt her but it ends up leaving her anyway, hurting her in the process.