Nostromo
The title character's given name is Gian’ Battista Fidanza. He is a native Italian who has found himself a hero of the people within the volatile political structure on the fictional island of Costaguana. His defining characteristic among all who know him is that he is Nostromo the incorruptible.
He is the captain in charge of the dock workers. He is eventually given the task of protecting the annual shipment of silver taken from a mine. A series of unfortunate events results in the treasure winding up on a deserted island. The only other person who knows this commits suicide.
Nostromo has gone back to Costaguana while leaving his companion on the island to guard the treasure. By the time he returns, he has grown disillusioned with the political leadership. Finding four missing ingots and no sign of the man he left behind, Nostromo is faced with a huge moral decision. He must choose whether to accept blame for the theft of the four bars of silver or take advantage of the fact that nobody but he himself even knows of the existence of the treasure.
Charles and Emilia Gould
Charles Gould is the Englishman who has inherited rights to the silver mine in Costaguana. Emilia is his wife, famous for being the only Englishwoman in the country. Together, they begin ownership of the silver mine with idealistic dreams.
Before too long, that idealistic dream turns into greed, exploitation of workers, and materialistic fetishism for Charles. Emilia retains the idealistic dream with which she arrived. That dream transforms into a fantasy of reversing the European conquest of the New World and correcting past wrongs.
Emilia's overly optimistic idealism must square off with the increasing spiral into madness of silver fever gripping her husband. He loses all sympathetic feelings towards others as he builds a wall between them and his overwhelming greed. Ironically, Charles becomes exploited by the mine as he descends into a kind of psychological bondage to his materialism. Emilia becomes more and more distanced from her husband and suffers her own sort of imprisonment.
Martin Decoud
Martin Decoud is a French intellectual reporting on the politics of Costaguana. He comes under target for daring to publish unflattering truths about the despotic leader. As a result, he finds himself in danger and goes on the run, assisting Nostromo in the transport of the silver.
Decoud is the man whom Nostromo leaves behind and alone on the deserted island. He is charged with protecting the silver from potential thieves but ultimately becomes a victim not to robbers, but his own mind. In escaping from Costaguana, he has left behind his fiancé, Antonia, who also happens to be the daughter of Don Jose Avellanos, the idealistic former leader of the country who has fallen under the thumb of the despotic dictator.
Left alone on the island with all only his multiple problems to keep him company, Decoud eventually begins to succumb to the prolonged effects of isolation and solitude. Eventually he descends into delirium and then madness. He weighs himself down with four ingots of silver before committing suicide. Those four missing ingots become the stimulating element which leads to Nostromo's series of disastrous decisions.
