Brutus Jones
The titular emperor of an unidentified West Indies island spent ten years working as a train porter in the United States before a game of dice spiraled wildly out of control. He killed a man named Jeff over a dispute during a game of craps. After getting thrown in jail, Brutus then killed a prison guard and escaped America as a stowaway on a ship bound for the Indies. Once on the island, he recognized how impressive he was to the natives and exploited their gullibility to become ruler. The play picks up at the exact moment that Jones' subjects begin to grow tired of him and start staging a revolt. Jones is depicted as greedy and prideful, without thinking of the ethical implications of his misdeeds. His misdeeds begin to catch up with him, however, when he enters the dark forest, and is attended by haunting hallucinations about his sordid past. He ends up becoming his own worst enemy, panicking in the face of his own conscience and making his way back to the very place where he entered the forest, where the revolutionaries are waiting to kill him.
Smithers
Ostensibly a friend of Jones, but a profoundly racist white Cockney trader who looks upon Jones with thinly veiled malice. Smithers is the one to warn Jones of the revolution, and can hardly believe it when the natives manage to make silver bullets with which to kill their emperor. Smithers is a crooked and evil character, who seems to always side with whoever has power.
Lem
Lem was the leader before Jones' arrival, and is the leader of the insurrection which finally kills the ill-fated emperor. Lem already tried to assassinate Jones by shooting him, but failed. In the wake of the accident, Jones convinces his subjects that he possesses magical powers and can be brought down only by a silver bullet. Following this logic, Lem stages a revolution and melts down a bunch of coins in order to make the silver bullets that end up killing Jones.
Old Native Woman
The old woman is in and out of the story by the end of the first scene, but plays a significant role in the narrative. The play opens with Smithers arriving to an empty palace. When he finds the old woma,n she tells him that a rebellion is underway and Jones is in danger.
The Witch-Doctor
The witch-doctor is merely a figment of the emperor’s fevered imagination, appearing in a weird hallucinatory sequence near the end of the story. He is an image of Africa, a spiritual shaman who wants to make Jones into a human sacrifice to a god-like crocodile lying in wait in a nearby river.
