Carol Milford Kennicott
A midwesterner and a librarian by trade, Carol's story takes her to a miserable small-town life, away from her more liberal life in St. Paul. The novel mainly concerns her relationship to small town characters.
Dr. Will Kennicott
The husband of an unhappy wife. Dr. Kennicott's natural authority in the small town attracted Carol to him, but he turns out to be more conservative than she originally hoped for, and he often criticizes her for her curious and spunky attitude.
Bea Sorenson
A free-thinking person and an ethnic Swede, Bea becomes the victim of the town's vicious judgment after the tragic death of his wife and child.
Guy Pollock
This character is a lawyer, and he helps us to understand Carol, because she finds herself very attracted to Guy, a liberal person who also is tired of small town life.
Erik Valborg
Oddly, Carol doesn't succeed in making a relationship between her and Guy, but she does find an affair with Erik Valborg instead. Erik is also Swedish, and the two are quickly discovered.
Fern Mullins
Poor Fern is a young lady and a high school teacher, not much older than her own students, and that means she is tempted by her own students, especially Cy Bogart, and at a dance, she can't help herself, and the two become involved. Before long, she's the talk of the town, and the way the town mistreats her in the aftermath is the last straw for Carol who leaves right behind Fern.
