Michael Berg
Michael is both the narrator and the central character in the novel. When it begins, he is a fifteen year old boy, anxious to grow up, feeling the conflict internally that is felt by the majority of teen boys the world over. Sometimes he feels incredibly confident, briilliant, charismatic and popular. Sometimes he feels like an enormous failure who has no friends and is not at all pleasant to look at. There is no middle ground to these feelings. When Michael meets Hanna Schmitz, he is immediately drawn to her but does not understand why. Prior to meeting Hanna, he has had no sexual experiences at all, but is attracted to her in a way he does not comprehend. He seems to be the instigator in their relationship and is almost immediately both the leader, and subordinate, simultaneously. He is not just in love with Hanna but obsessed with her and is quite cunning in the way he manages to create opportunities to see her without his parents' knowledge. At first putting his studies on the backburner so that he can spend time with her, he suddenly becomes the top student in his class when it seems that not studying will upset Hanna and cause her to spend less time with him.
Michael takes on all of the responsibility in their relationship for making Hanna happy but does not consider what she can do to make him feel the same. There are some occasions when he seems to believe that they have a chance of making their relationship last into his adulthood. On other occasions it becomes clear that he is starting to want to spend time with his friends more than he wants to spend time with Hanna, and it is only guilt about feeling this way that makes him keep their dates at all. There is also a part of Michael that likes to be withdrawn and mysterious from his friends. He reads to Hanna, every time they are together. He sees is as some kind of romantic ritual that brings them closer together.
When Hanna leaves town abruptly, she does so without any warning, and he becomes a shell of a person, going through all of the motions of having a real life, but not feeling them, almost as if he is having an out of body experience and watching himself living his life, instead of actually participating in it. His relationships are almost all damaged because he is still infatuated with Hanna. Keeping her a secret from his wife eventually destroys his marriage, but sharing the memory of her with future girlfriends does not seem to enhance his relationships with them either. He keeps women at arms length, longing to feel the way that he felt when he was with Hanna.
As an adult, Michael is repulsed by the things that Hanna did whilst a guard at Auschwitz, but also tries to find reasons and excuses for her. Watching her trial in court, he is frustrated by her failure to explain herself properly, wanting her to confirm his belief that she chose the weakest of the prisoners to read to her, and be her special "pet", in order to make the last days of their lives more pleasant. He cannot bring himself to believe that "his" Hanna was brutal and unfeeling, and a murderer. Michael's guilt is overwhelming him, feeling guilty that he loved a murderer, a war criminal, and also feeling guilty that he is essentially being disloyal to Hanna by thinking her capable of the things she is charged with.
After her imprisonment, Michael finds it hard to think of her all alone in prison and records "talking books" for her, having come to the realization that she is illiterate. He also assumes that she will stay this way until he receives a scrawled note from her, commenting on the book he recorded. He is proud of her for learning to read. MIchael does not seem to realize that their relationship was child abuse, and that by loving Hanna he has essentially been prevented from having a normal life, with normal, feeling relationships. He remains in love with her, and at the same time, feeling beholden to love her, until she dies. He simultaneously wants to be rid of the memories that plague him, and also to make sure that he preserves them correctly.
Hanna Schmitz
Hanna is a German woman who lives alone, and who realizes that the young man who visits with her is as infatuated with her as she is with him. It is never definitively stated in the novel whether she has genuine feelings for Michael, or whether she was using him to read to her. She is illiterate and every decision she has made in her life, good or bad, has been made to cover up this fact. As a young woman, she worked in the Siemens factory in Germany and was offered a promotion. However, promotion would mean being required to demonstrate literacy, so she takes the opportunity to sign up as a guard with the SS to avoid revealing that she cannot read or write. It is terrifying and enormously sad that there is no ideological thought involved in the decision; she becomes a murderer because she is illiterate. Similarly, after the war when she is a street car conductor, she is offered the chance to become a street car driver, but again, this would reveal her illiteracy. Rather than acknowledge it, or do something to change it, she runs away, leaving town without warning. Leaving without warning is a trademark of Hanna's as there is also no warning when she is about to leave Michael a second time, by killing herself the night before she is due to be released from prison.
Hanna learns to read in prison, and seems to tire of keeping up the facade and hiding her illiteracy. She reads much about the Nazi death camps, but again the author does not specify whether this is to find out what she was a part of in her role as a guard, or whether is is to relive the experience of being a guard. As a guard, she was one of a group who were responsible for locking their prisoners in a church, and when the church caught fire, failing to unlock the doors and letting them out. All but two perished in the fire. Hanna's logic told her that she had been told not to let the prisoners escape, so this is what she was going to do. When she feels that there is a logical reason for her behavior, however terrible it was, she will defend her position vociferously, but is unaware of the negative impression she is making on everyone else.
Hanna does seem to feel some remorse at the end of her life, leaving her money to one of the two survivors of the inferno, but again, this is ambiguous, as the bequest could also be an attempt to find redemption for herself.
Michael's Father
Michael's father is a philosopher and philosophy lecturer, who has authored books about philosophers, and is therefore prone to hiding away in academia rather than participating in the physical world around him. For years Michael believed that he and his siblings were more like pets to his father than children, as they would have to make an appointment to see him, just like his students would need to do. This carried on into his adulthood, and although his father tells Michael that he can call on him anytime, the invitation doesn't ring true. Michael's father loves his children very much and is aware of his own parental shortcomings but not sure of how to redress them. He is always able to give advice based on logic, and by drawing the correct conclusion from his son, rather than by laying down a law or an opinion.
Sophie
Sophie is the first girl his own age that Michael is attracted to. As well as being entertaining, fun and very pretty, she has also adeptly realised that Michael has a secret that is a burden, even if he does not realize himself that it is burdening him. It is his attraction to Sophie that makes Michael start to spend less time with Hanna and more time at the pool with his friends.
Prison Warden
The chief warden is the person who reaches out to Michael again and reconnects her with the physical reality of Hanna, rather than Hanna as a concept, that he has been treating her as by sending her talking books but never communicating in person. She seems to be fond of Hanna and to respect her for the qualities of leadership, wisdom and introspection that she has shown in prison. She does not understand what the relationship between Michael and Hanna is but knows that it is something that can be built on in order to ease Hanna out of prison life and back into mainstream society. She also seems to be somewhat frustrated that Hanna chose to commit suicide and there is an underlying anger with Michael that he is partly responsible for this.
