Roald Dahl
Of course, the main character in this book is the author of it, Roald Dahl. This is a memoir of Dahl’s life during the period he spent in Africa working for Shell Oil until the onset of World War II. The story picks up immediately from where his previous memoir of childhood left off.
Miss Trefusis
Miss Trefusis is an elderly coffee plantation owner in Kenya and former acquaintance of the author of Out of Africa. She is, by her own admission, an exemplar of “going barmy.” That is a British phrase which is synonymous with a phrase more easily recognized by American readers: “going native.” She warns Dahl that the longer he stays in Africa, the more likely it is that one loses some of their national identity.
Major Griffiths
For Dahl, Major Griffiths is his first really shocking example of what “going barmy” actually means. It is during his conversation with Miss Trefusis about this very concept that he mentions having seen the Major and his wife “running round the deck naked.” The response this gets from Miss Trefusis is quite telling as she snorts at Dahl’s shock, “That’s normal.” Dahl's response to Major Griffiths is equally dismissive, referring to him as the sort of person who would leave you to the crocodiles.
U.N. Savory
The man with the unusual name is a Punjabi cotton mill manager who is sleeping in the bunk beneath Dahl’s when the author first spots the naked Major Griffiths running past his porthole. He is shockingly introduced to the news that Savory is a Sikh upon finding a bald stranger in his cabin one day and learning that his companion goes to enormous lengths to use four different wigs to cover up the loss of hair because hair is of such supreme importance to his religion that “a Sikh doesn’t respect a bald man.”
