This content is from Wikipedia. We do not consider this content professional or citable. Please use your discretion when relying on it. GradeSaver also offers a professionally written study guide by one of our staff editors.

Characters in "O Pioneers!"

• Alexandra Bergson: The main character of the book. A strong-willed and intelligent woman. She was given the farm by her father John Bergson and after 16 years turned it into a very prosperous one. Alexandra isn't very adept at sensing peoples feelings or her own. It takes her a long time to realize that she loves Carl Linstrum. She also doesn't sense Emil's growing attraction toward the unhappily married Marie Shabata. She seems easy to forgive as well, as she claims to have no ill will against Frank, despite the fact he savagely murdered her brother.
• Emil Bergson: Emil, the youngest child of John Bergson, grows up in Alexandra's wealth to become an intelligent, handsome, and athletic person. He has the opportunity to go to college which he undertakes. But tragically he is in love with Marie Shabata who is unhappily married. He leaves for Mexico to try to escape his temptation for Marie. But after a year he returns and cannot resist. He kisses her for the first time and before leaving for law school bids a final goodbye to Marie. But Frank Shabata, Marie's husband, catches them and shoots them both in a bloody rage. He is also a baby and his eyes are too close to his nose so he looks almost like a fish that got his face smashed like a flounder only with eyes on either side of his nose...
• Carl Linstrum: A former neighbor of the Bergson's. After leaving the homestead he apprentices as an engraver and lives in New York city. He becomes disillusioned with urban life and returns to see Alexandra before he wanders to Alaska.
• Marie Tovesky: A Bohemian girl who crossed paths with the Bergson's as a child and then takes up one of Alexandra's homesteads. She embodies the passion and romance of the prairie.
• Joe Tovesky, Marie's uncle.
• John Bergson, Alexandra's father. He owns 640 acres (2.6 km²) of land.
• Lou, John's son. He is seventeen years old at the outset of the novel.
• Oscar, John's son. He is nineteen years old at the outset of the novel.
• Uncle Otto, John's brother who gave in and left for Chicago where he has been working in a bakery.
• Mrs Bergson, stout and proud: she desires all the comforts of the old country and achieves it in a new and indifferent land.
• Ivar, he reads the Bible and has a mystic quality about him. He also has a great affinity to animals, especially birds.
• Signa, The youngest of Alexandra's Swedish servants.
• Barney Flinn, Alexandra's foreman.
• Mrs Hiller, a neighbour.
• Nelse Jensen, Signa's suitor, then husband.
• Annie Lee, Lou's wife's maiden name.
• Mrs Lee, Lou's mother-in-law.
• Milly, fifteen-year-old; Annie's daughter. She plays the organ and the piano.
• Stella, Annie's younger daughter.
• Frank Shabata, Marie's husband. He likes to read the Sunday newspaper about rich people's bold gestures. His character is a representation of anger and irrationality on the prairie. he's a jerk and burps when drunk like a little kid.
• Albert Tovesky, Marie's father; an adviser in Omaha.
• Amédée Chevalier, a Frenchman, friends with Emil.
• Angélique Chevalier, Amédée's wife.
• Father Duchesne, the French priest.
• Raoul Marcel
• Moses Marcel, Raoul's father.
• Jean Bordelau
• Jan Smirka
• Mr Schwartz, the warden at the prison where Frank is being kept.