Professor Leeds
He is a 55-year-old man at the beginning of the play with an expression of a “retiring, studious nature” whose temperament may be timid but who takes on the “complacent, superior manner of the classroom toward the world at large.” He also has a “prim provincialism" except for his studies. He is the father of Nina Leeds and a former professor of Charles Marsden. He did not care for Gordon because he selfishly worried that the young man would take Nina away from him in his old age, but now that Gordon’s death comes at the beginning of the play, he is primarily concerned with his daughter’s mental and physical health. His own death is announced at the beginning of Act Two.
Nina Leeds
A vibrant and stunning young woman when we first meet her, she is also wracked with despair over losing her love, Gordon Shaw, in the war. She turns that despair into sexual promiscuity with wounded soldiers but eventually decides to settle down into motherhood with the affable Sam Evans. But when she learns she should not have Sam’s child, she has a secret child with Ned Darrell instead. This ignites a blazing love for the man, and she spends several decades in a torturous on-and-off relationship with him. She does this to keep the poor, innocent Sam happy and ignorant, but constantly second-guesses this choice and is frequently angry and bitter. She loves her son, secretly the child of Darrell, whom she names after her former lover, but in the last acts of the text resents that he is grown up and wants to go away with his own love, Madeline, a woman who also incurs her displeasure because she reminds Nina of the beauty she has conspicuously lost. After Sam dies, never having learned the truth of Gordon’s parentage, Nina says a final goodbye to Darrell and decides to marry the older, eligible permanent bachelor Charles Marsden because he provides her with a patriarchal comfort.
Charles Marsden
He is an elegant, snobbish, and intellectual novelist who was once a student of Professor Leeds and had a father-type relationship with Nina when she was younger. Meeting her again in her early twenties, he believes himself in love with her, though the text strongly suggests he is bisexual or maybe even homosexual. He does not actively pursue her until many decades later after Evans dies and Nina is a widow. While Nina thinks of him as a father figure and a lover only appropriate for old age when the flame of desire has been snuffed out, she agrees to marry him and have a comfortable late life.
Edmund “Ned” Darrell
He is a handsome, serious doctor who was friends with Gordon and met Nina when she was a nurse. He prides himself on his suppression of carnal desires in favor of scientific objectivity and assumes this attitude will allow him to have sex and procreate with Nina for the sake of keeping Sam happy and ignorant. However, he becomes consumed with lust, and later even love, for Nina, and they maintain a torturous relationship for several decades. A business deal with Sam brings him a great deal of money so he devotes his time to biological research; this also allows the anguished man to separate himself for long periods of time from Nina and his secret biological son, Gordon Evans, who does not know the truth of his parentage and is rather rude to Darrell. He and Nina eventually make their peace and agree not to see each other again.
Sam Evans
Sam is a friendly, guileless, all-American young man when we first meet him. A friend of Gordon Shaw, he is desirous of marrying Nina. After that occurs, we learn the Evanses' lineage is cursed and he will likely go insane if he procreates; this is a secret Sam’s mother kept from him. He does not know, then, that young Gordon is not his biological son, and never does learn this. He eventually becomes a success in business and is able to provide a comfortable, privileged life for his family, but his lifestyle contributes to his poor health and he dies.
Gordon Evans
He is Nina and Sam’s son, but actually the secret biological son of Darrell. He first appears as a young child, irritated by Darrell’s constant presence and concerned that his mother does not love his father (Sam). Later he is a handsome, athletic, privileged young man of college age, engaged to Madeline and an incarnation of his namesake.
Madeline Arnold
She is a beautiful, athletic, and confident young woman of 19 years old who is engaged to Gordon Shaw. She has mild concerns about Nina’s obvious dislike of her, but is certain she can be more powerful when she and Gordon actually marry.
Mrs. Amos Evans
Sam’s mother, she is a 45-year-old woman who was once beautiful but aged terribly and seems to bear a great sorrow. She confides to Nina that Sam’s father went insane and that insanity runs in his family. She is convinced this happens when children are born, so in order to save her beloved son this fate, she begs Nina not to bear Sam’s child and to secretly have a child with another man. After Nina agrees, the two women never see each other again.
Gordon Shaw
He does not appear onstage. He is Nina’s former lover who died in the war and whose ghost seems to (figuratively) haunt the play.
Bessie Evans
She does not appear onstage. She is Sam’s insane aunt who lives upstairs at the Evanses' house.
Preston
He does not appear onstage. He is Darrell’s associate down at the Station in the West Indies. When he is first mentioned, he is in his twenties. Later Darrell admits he may have considered the man a substitute son for Gordon.
