Edward Barnard
The protagonist and title character is all set to pursue the great American dream. He’s got himself an attractive fiancé and promising job in Chicago. After his father shoots himself as a means of dealing with financial ruin for the family, Edward is moved to take the offer from his employer to spend a year or two in Tahiti convincing the islanders of American technological exceptionalism. Two years later it is obviously to everyone that he’s “gone native” and needs to brought back home before he destroys the rest of his life.
Bateman Hunter
Bateman is the man who sets sail for Tahiti to do the job. A good friend of Edward’s and the losing rival in their affections for the same woman, Bateman is introduced at the beginning of the story already back in the states and headed to Chicago. His mission has failed as Edward proves nobody need worry about his future. For the live of him, Bateman cannot figure out how Edward could possibly find happiness loafing about on an island with nothing to live for but a pretty native girl and a rejection of everything that the American Dream has to guarantee happiness. Ah well, at least now Isabel is free again.
Isabel Longstaffe
Of the society Longstaffes, don’t you know, a family with means and money. The combination of family and beauty makes Isabel a prize to fought for and at first Edward is declared winner. But Isabel is hardly the type to give up antique furnishings, concerts, dinner parties and, well, the money any husband she marries would only rightly expect to earn. So, following the love of her life to a forsaken island is out of the question. Fortunately, Bateman has no interest in contemplation of what really matters. Theirs will be a match made in midwestern heaven.
Arnold Jackson
The extended Longstaffe family has a black sheep in the flock. Not a Longstaffe by blood, of course, Isabel’s mother has a brother named Arnold Jackson who commits fraud when he’s not attending church and engaging in philanthropic activities. He does the crime which makes him an outcast for everybody, including Bateman. But he also does the time and when Edward happens to discover Arnold living in Tahiti following release from prison, he learns of Arnold’s reputation that not cover is artfully illustrated enough to judge the book. Bateman also meets up with Jackson while trying to retrieve Edward and still remains flummoxed by Edward’s ultimate description of the rogue: he is the man who taught Edward how to live.
