Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde is both the author and the main character in these texts. Though Lorde writes about broadly relevant issues such as racism, sexism, and homophobia, she does so through the lens of her own experience. Therefore Lorde frequently references her own professional and personal life, including her dealings with other intellectuals, her struggles and triumphs raising children, and her feelings of anger and hope in the face of injustice. Lorde presents herself as a deeply vulnerable and constantly questioning individual with a desire to act in a morally correct way. She also tends to address her audience with a mixture of affection and sternness, particularly when delivering speeches or writing letters to a highly specific person or group of people. Thus, in these pages, Audre Lorde is a deeply honest and curious person, simultaneously exploring problems relevant to her life and passionately corralling others to join her.
Robert Staples
Robert Staples was a sociologist focusing on African-American life and a contemporary of Audre Lorde. Though he, like nearly everyone described in Sister Outsider, is a real person, Lorde vividly characterizes him by addressing him in her essay "Sexism: An American Disease in Blackface." The essay is a response to a paper of Staples' in which he characterizes Black feminism as a dangerous phenomenon. Lorde, throughout her response, paints a picture of Staples as something of a chauvinist, carelessly ignoring the dangerous realities of life as a Black woman. Lorde clearly has little patience for Staples, and points out contradictions and loopholes in his work, ultimately making him appear impulsive, agenda-driven, and self-centered.
Mary Daly
Mary Daly appears in Sister Outsider in a similar role as Robert Staples—in her essay "An Open Letter to Mary Daly," Lorde responds to the feminist intellectual's book Gyn/Ecology. Lorde's attitude toward Daly is one of severe disappointment and even sadness rather than anger. She acknowledges Daly's importance within the feminist movement, but sharply critiques the way she writes about, or neglects to write about, Black women. Whereas Lorde seems eager to point out Robert Staples' lack of knowledge, she hints that Daly is intelligent and moral enough to have done better, but has chosen not to. Therefore, the reader's impression of Daly is of an intelligent person, torn between truly radical, thoughtful politics and an easier but ultimately false route.
Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich, who interviews Lorde in one segment of Sister, Outsider, was a major lesbian feminist writer of the late twentieth century. In the pages of this book, though, she appears as Lorde's close friend, showing readers a more informal, unfiltered side of the author. She also invites readers to identify with her, since she carefully analyzes and wonders about Lorde's writing, just as an attentive reader would. As an interviewer, Rich primarily remains out of the spotlight in order to place attention on her subject, but generally comes across as a lively, critical, and supportive character.
Jonathan
Jonathan is Lorde's son, portrayed as a funny, vulnerable, well-meaning figure. He is in early adolescence when Lorde describes him in "Man Child: A Black Lesbian Feminist's Response," and displays a mixture of childlike guilelessness and adult sharpness. In his young childhood, Lorde writes, Jonathan was sensitive and often bullied, partly because of his mother's race and sexuality, and partly because of his own unwillingness to take part in traditionally masculine activities. The essay closes with a quote from Jonathan himself, though, and the older version of Lorde's son displays easy confidence as he explains—perhaps as a joke and perhaps with total sincerity—that he is now antagonized, not by his peers, who "know better," but by "other kids."
Beth
Beth, Lorde's daughter and older child, comes across as an expressive, energetic young woman with a strong sense of right and wrong. When Jonathan is bullied, Beth both fights off his enemies and reports on the situation to their mother. In her essay "The Transformation of Silence Into Language and Action," Lorde quotes her daughter's explanation that anger must be expressed, or else will get "madder and madder and hotter and hotter, and if you don't speak it out one day it will just up and punch you in the mouth from the inside." In "Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger," Lorde describes her daughter's emotional response to the racism she faces at college, showing a more reflective—and sadder—side of this character.
Frances
Frances Clayton was Lorde's long-term partner, referred to by Lorde as her lover. Frances never makes an appearance on the page, but Lorde references her frequently. She represents their relationship as a source of peace and strength in stressful times. Lorde also often references the stressful nature of having a white partner and being in a lesbian relationship, though she attributes these difficulties to widespread bias rather than to Frances herself.
Audre Lorde's Mother
Lorde primarily describes her mother in the essays "Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger," and in "An Interview: Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich." She represents her mother as a well-meaning and loving parent with understandable but deep flaws, including an aversion to open conversation or emotional revelation with her children. Lorde attributes to her mother a desire to help her and her siblings survive in a racist world, but takes issue with some of her specific ways of doing so. Still, she speaks fondly of her, and does her best to connect to her after her death by traveling to her home country of Grenada.
Nancy K. Bereano
Nancy K. Bereano, Lorde's publisher, authored the introduction to Sister, Outsider. She describes her relationship to the book as a feminist, a Jewish woman, and a mother, explaining to readers of all identities and backgrounds how they are likely to find the book simultaneously illuminating, discomfiting, and exciting.
Fikre
An Ethiopian student in Moscow who accompanies Lorde during her trip, documented in "Notes From a Trip to Russia." Fikre is helpful, attentive, and patient.
