The Outsider: Analysis of Major Characters

Author: Ernesto Sábato

First published: El túnel, 1948 (English translation, 1950)

Genre: Novel

Locale: Buenos Aires and Hunter's Ranch

Plot: Psychological

Time: 1946

Juan Pablo Castel (hwahn PAHB-loh kahs-TEHL), the narrator, a well-known and critically admired painter. Castel is a shy, thirty-eight-year-old, self-absorbed bachelor who has never established a satisfactory relationship with a woman. He sees María Iribarne in a gallery, seemingly transfixed by one of his paintings. He becomes obsessed with her, meets her again, and becomes her lover. As one reads Castel's narration of these events, one finds oneself in the mind of a madman. Castel is an ultrarational yet warped person who shifts rapidly from some objective sense of himself and some ability to feel compassion to a paranoid personality full of anger and suspicion. Finally convinced that María is having an affair with Luis Hunter, he breaks into her room and stabs her to death. He is narrating these events in a mental hospital.

María Iribarne (mah-REE-ah ee-ree-BAHR-neh), a beautiful, young, wealthy woman. She appears physically to be twenty-six years old, Castel says, but seems older to him in terms of her self-possession and personality. The reader only knows her as an enigmatic figure, described entirely by Castel. Castel, from his alienated isolation, decides that he never really knew her, but that they were moving in separate tunnels along parallel lines. In a moment of insight, he realizes that it may have been only himself moving through a dark tunnel, not her or others. María remains enigmatic, because the reader has no knowledge of her other than what Castel reveals, and he often casts doubt on his own perceptions of and conclusions about her.

Allende Hunter (ah-YEHN-deh), María's husband. Tall, thin, and handsome, but blind, Allende is a calm, cosmopolitan man who seems to accept María on her own terms. When Castel kills María, he rushes to Allende to tell him that María has betrayed him with Luis Hunter and others. Allende attacks him, calling him an imbecile and a fool, but he does not contradict Castel's charges. Allende neither explains his relationship with María and Luis Hunter nor reveals his perception of any of these events. He commits suicide.

Luis Hunter, an architect and Allende's cousin. He lives on the family estancia, where María often stays. He is described only by Castel and in unflattering terms, as having devious eyes and as being sly, despicable, and a womanizer. Castel believes that Luis has an affair with María, but perhaps that is only a paranoid fantasy.

Mimí Hunter, Allende's cousin. She is described by Castel as a skinny, perverse, nearsighted woman with a Parisian accent and pseudo-intellectual pretensions. She heightens the enigmatic flavor of the book, because she is viewed only through the paranoid analysis of Castel.

Lartigue (lahr-TEE-geh), a poet and friend of Luis Hunter. Castel asks him if María and Luis are lovers. To the twisted mind of Castel, Lartigue confirms the affair by saying that he knows nothing of that.