Freddie Quell
Freddie is a former Navy sailor who is having difficulty adjusting to day to day life after World War II. He meets Lancaster Dodd by wandering on to his boat as he was drunk one night. Freddie is full of pain at having not reconnected Doris, the young girl he wanted spend the rest of his life with, and his experiences in war. He deals with his pain by drinking his own dangerous brand of booze, and through sexual encounters and violence.
Lancaster Dodd
Lancaster is the leader of a movement called the Cause. He has created a way of healing people from past life trauma and has written a book on the process of doing so. In the midst of completing his second book, Lancaster meets Freddie who he says he met lifetimes before, and they were two witnesses during war time. He is temperamental, and enjoys Freddie's brand of booze and desires to be the center of attention and knowledge.
Peggy Dodd
Peggy is Lancaster's second wife. She is adamant about the Cause remaining strong and fervent within her husband, and is possibly more of a believer and an architect of the movement than her husband is.
Val Dodd
Val is Lancaster's oldest son. He believes his dad is simply making everything up as he goes, that the reality of the Cause is that its all a fake, and it exhausts him.
Helen Sullivan
Helen is an avid supporter of the Cause. She invites the Dodd's to stay and work with her in her Philadelphia home. She believes in the work of processing, but when Dodd changes the language in the major processing question from "recall" to "imagine" she begins to have concerns about Dodd's work.
Clark
Clark is Elizabeth Dodd's husband. He is a believer in the cause and a man who has yet to break out of his shell in his ownership of who he is. He believes that Freddie is a threat to the Cause.
Elizabeth Dodd
Elizabeth is the eldest daughter of the Dodd's who marries Clark. She comes on to Freddie even while she is married, but soon tells her father that she believes he is dangerous to the Cause and that he wants her.
