Marcovaldo
Marcovaldo is the protagonist of the story. He is “a blue-collar worker who longs for escape from his dreary existence.” Marcovaldo is a small dreamer in a big city who loves nature and is completely unsuitable for city life. He has a big family – wife Domitilla and their daughters Isolina and Teresa, and their sons Michelino, Pietruccio, Filippetto and Fiordaligi. As the family is pretty big, and Marcovaldo is the only one who works, they don’t have much money, they are rather poor family and they cannot afford to buy many things. Marcovaldo tries hard to earn more money, but he is not a skilled worker and there are more failures in his life than victories. But, nevertheless, he is a good father; he is just lost because this city life scares him. It is not what the place he wants to be, he longs to live in harmony with nature because he loves it. And when it comes to choose between nature and some mundane need (like it was in case with the rabbit ) he will always choose the first one.
Domitilla
Domitilla is Marcovaldo’s wife. The author doesn’t go deeply into details of their relationship and characteristic of their family life. As it was mentioned before, they are poor people but they never had fights about it because Domitilla knew that her husband tries hard to get money, although he doesn’t succeed in doing so. But she didn’t share his love to the nature and considered that their needs are more important than his moral values. When they didn’t have anything to eat, she decided to cook the rabbit, her husband brought before and when he asked her where it is she said that she didn’t know (fortunately, children let it go). She didn’t regret about her decision to kill it because when it comes to choose between love to the nature and the need to feed her children he will always choose the last option.
Michelino
Michelino is the eldest son in the family. He is a teenager who thinks that he understands the life. he is a good guy who always wants to do better but, as it happens, he only makes the matters worse, like in the case with Christmas presents when he thought that the little boy who lived in luxurious villa was very poor child. Michelino loves freedom and thinks that he is mature enough to live his own life. One day he saw men, going to pasture the cows and he decided to join them because he thought that it will be a terrific adventure and he will enjoy the nature and even earn some money. But, unfortunately, he was mistaken – he had to work hard from the early morning till the late night, having no time to admire the beauty of the virgin nature and the only thought he had in mind was to go back home.
Signor Rizieri
Signor Rizieri was a little old man, whom Marcovaldo often met on the bench, where both of them liked to seat. They weren’t friends but they had a lot in common because Rizieri was lonely, like Marcovaldo was (because no one understood him) and he also was a “regular visitor of sunny park benches” just like Marcovaldo. Also, both of them suffered from rheumatic aches and it was their favorite topic for discussion: “He was a mass of rheumatism, arthritis, lumbago, collected during the damp, cold winter, which continued to pursue him for the rest of the year. To console him, Marcovaldo would explain the various stages of his own rheumatic pains, as well as those of his wife and of his oldest daughter, Isolina, who, poor thing, was turning out to be rather delicate”.
