Each character is expressed like a caricature in which one quality or trait is over-emphasized. Mahfouz is not satirizing the individual character – he is satirizing the character type.
- Kirsha, a café owner who illegally sells and uses hashish and has a predilection for young boys
- Mrs. Kirsha, infamous for her temper
- Uncle Kamil, good-hearted, bachelor sweets-seller, famously bloated and sleepy
- Abbas, a young, kindly barber who wants to get married, joins the British army to make money to be able to marry Hamida.
- Salim Alwan, the lustful, wealthy businessman who competes with Abbas for the love of Hamida. After surviving a heart attack, he becomes embittered, preventing him from marrying Hamida
- Dr. Booshy, the self-proclaimed dentist who sells false teeth at dirt-cheap prices by stealing them off dead bodies
- Sanker, the waiter at Kirsha's café
- Sheikh Darwish, the old poet and former English teacher, who left his former life to roam the streets.
- Radwan Hussainy, a landlord who beats his wife and failed his al-Azhar exams, yet is revered for his high degree of education and devotion to God. He has lost all of his children.
- Hussain Kirsha, son of the café owner who works for the British. He marries a woman of lower class and returns home with her and her brother.
- Saniya Afify, widowed landlady who desires to remarry. Umm Hamida sets her up with a younger man named Ahmed Effendi Talbat
- Umm Hamida, the neighborhood matchmaker and bath attendant; Hamida's foster mother
- Hamida, a beautiful young woman who dreams of a better life and has a distinctly self-centered personality, but is easily persuaded by wealth or power.
- Husniya, the bakeress who beats her husband with her slipper
- Jaada, Husniya's husband
- Zaita, the cripple maker who lives outside the bakery and aids Dr. Booshy in his theft of false teeth.
- Ibrahim Farhat, a politician
- Ibrahim Faraj, a pimp who tries to seduce Hamida into working for him
- The Poet, who is replaced by a radio and is barred by Kirsha (only appears in the first chapter)
