Here you will find all about the different characters in the story, both of the years around 1923 and the 1970s. First a little constellation to get to know better the relationship of the characters at the beginning of the story :)

1923

Olivia:

• she first met the Nawab at a dinner party (P.19)
• plays piano and reads much
• likes to go on party to leave her house
• is bored by the Minnies’ and Saunders’ unterminable anecdotes (P.20)
• „[...] he checked himself immediately, ut she had seen it and realized that here at last was one person in India to be interested in her the way she was used to“ (P.22,ll. 1-3)
• when she wakes up the servants have already made the household
• has always been affected by graveyards (P.29)
• fears to lose her baby if she gets one in India
• writes intensly personal letters to Marcia (P.91)
• seems quite unexperienced and naive

The Nawab:

• died in 1953 (P. 16)
• is fond of entertaining Europeans (P.19)
• is always really alert what’s going on around him (P. 20)
• his eyes often rest on Olivia and study her (P.21)
• always comes with a whol party (P.22)
• brings alway Vodka because of the most people not having it (P.23)
• manly and strong person (P.37)
• is the Nawab since the age of 15
• very warm hearted and affectionate (to Harry) (P.72)
• looks devastingly handsome
• wants adventure (P. 138)

Sandy:

• real name: Zahira, wife of the Nawab and mentally ill (P.34)
• is able to play the piano, which the Nawab bough for her in earlier times (P.85)
• went to school in Switzerland

Douglas:

• works lika a trojan (P.1)
• is divorced (was married with Olivia), now married with Tessie
• died when narrator was three (Grandfather)
• is extremely busy with his work in the district (P. 19)
• is the only right person for Olivia -> noble and fair (P. 20)
• goes up at crack of dwan (P.22)
• when he’s amazed his eyes pop out and he begins to stutter (P. 24)

Tessie:

• She is married with Douglas and stays mostly in Satipur because of him. (P.1)
• Beth’s sister
• Grandmother of narrator

Beth Crawford:

• Tessies sister.
• very tactful (P.13)
• dominant figure (P.33)
• friend with Mrs. Minnies
• „Great-Aunt Beth knew where lines had to be drawn, not only in speech and behavior but
  also in one’s thought. In the same way she had never let her mind dwell on the Begum and
  her ladies …. She had no desire to speculate about what went on in those purdah
  quarters … Beth felt that there were oriental privacies—mysteries—that should not be
  disturbed, whether they lay within the Palace, the bazaar of Satipur, or the alleys of Khatm.
  All those dark regions were outside her sphere of action or imagination—as was Olivia once
  she had crossed over into them.“ (P.168-169, ll 35 ff.)

The Begum:

• The Nawab’s mother
• speaks only Hindu (P. 32)
• around 50 years, large wart on her cheek
• chain smoking

Harry:

• plump, bulding Englishman
• lives with the Nawab in the Palace
• fears the death of his mother
• after the elopement of O. and the N. he immediately returns to England (P.157)
• lives with his mother in Kensington, then moves with his friend Ferdie

Marcia:

• Olivias sister, never lived in India
• drunk herself to death (P.1)
• smoked too much (P.163)
• talkative, nervous and has twice taken an overdose of sleeping tablets
• lived in France, because of the marriage with a Frenchman (P.49)
• understands Olivia to have left Douglas, since he was just a boring stick

The Minnies:

• live near Khatm (P.20)
• Major Minnies is political agent (has been in India for 20 years)
• Mj. Minnies feels not to be the right person in India (P. 137)

The Sauders:

• Mrs. Saunders lost her baby (P.30)
• unattractive woman, not too highly educated
• depressive

1970s:

Narrator:

• granddaughter of Douglas and Tessie Rivers
• She is in her 20s
• travels to India to learn what had happened to Douglas’ first wife, Olivia
• When summer arrives, she sleeps with the other inhabitants of her building in the open court
  yard
• She is befriended by Inder Lal’s mother
• She and Inder Lal later become lovers
• Only she knows she is pregnant.
• The narrator concludes her journey in X, the small village where Olivia had lived the rest of her life.
• open to other cultures
• tolerant
• open-minded
• likes adventures

Maji:

• is said to have certain powers( P.55) and a second sight
• lives in a little hut under a tree
• earthy-looking, peasant woman, quite fat and always jolly (P.81)
• had been a midwife(P.128)
• had been married and had several children
• her husband let her do everything an died in the end
• „Maji was in the state of samadhi. To be in that state means to have reached a higher state
  of consciousness and to be submerged in its bliss. At such times, Maji is entirely unaware of
  anything going on around her. She sits on the floor in the lotus pose … Her breathing is
  regular and peaceful as in dreamless sleep. When she woke up—if that’s the right
  expression which it isn’t—she smiled … as always at such times, she was like a person who
  had just stepped out of a revivifying bath, or some other medium of renewal. Her cheeks
  glowed and her eyes shone.“ (P. 150, ll. 5 ff.)

Inder Lal:

• is a government officer
• lives with his wife Ritu and mother and three children in some poky rooms, being the landlord of the narrators appartment.
• extremely polite, fears to embarass people (P.12)
• about 25-26 old (P.52)
• has a careworn expression
• „his eyes which are beautiful- full of melancholy and liquid with longing“
• has an affaier with the narrator (P.130)
• trusts the narrator completely and has become very affectionate

Inder Lal’s Mother:

• about 50 years old, strong, healthy and full of feminine vigour (P.53)
• has outing with friends

Chid:

• sais to have laid aside all personal characteristics, possession and clothes (P. 24)
• has a completely shaved heas, only o Hindu tuft left
• dressed like an Indian ascetic
• came to India because of Hindu scriptures he studied –> has come for spiritual purpose (P.27)
• had lived for months in India like a pilgrim
• he was given the name Chidananda (Chid)
• holy cave of Amarnath is his ultimate goal
• is always hungry, but not only for food (P-65)
• he needs sex very badly and uses the narrator
• returnes to be a Christian boy (P.129) and can’t bear Indian food anymore

Ritu:

• does never go out. Only with Inder Lals mother on the bazaar (P.16)
• is extremely shy and escapes from the narrator
• very thin, and not very strong, like her will (P.52)