Theophilus North: Analysis of Major Characters

Author: Thornton Wilder

First published: 1973

Genre: Novel

Locale: Newport, Rhode Island

Plot: Social realism

Time: Summer, 1926

Theophilus (Teddy) North, the stiff and stuffy narrator. North has recently quit his teaching job at a prestigious boys' preparatory school in Raritan, New Jersey, and has come back to Newport, Rhode Island, where he was stationed during World War I (1919–1920). He returns older and wiser, having finished college and lived in Europe for a year, to work for the summer as tennis coach, companion, and tutor to the wealthy residents of Newport. Conscious of his own middle-class background, North draws clear lines between himself and his employers (refusing, for example, to be entertained in their homes), but his regular interactions with these rich residents of the seaside resort allow him glimpses into their lives of privilege and leisure. Priggish and pedantic, a real “planner,” as one character calls him, North is constantly lecturing his employers about what they should do to change and then setting up elaborate schemes (often involving wild stories or lies) to bring about the necessary transformations. He is both a savior figure and a cupid, either helping people to transform their lives or matching people who should be together. His means and methods are highly manipulative and usually involve some type of deceit. North is, at least in background, a thinly disguised portrait of the author, but his formal manners and didactic relations with others seem closer to the seventy-five-year-old author than to his thirty-year-old character. In contrast to some of the cardboard characters in the various stories, North has a certain three-dimensional, if punctilious, reality.

Diana Bell, the spoiled and headstrong daughter of one of the oldest families of Newport. North is hired by her father to head off her elopement, and he does it in such a way that no one is hurt. Other influential people hear of his exploits.

Miss Norine Wyckoff, the last of a line of Newport aristocrats. Her house supposedly is haunted, but North helps her to dispel that rumor so that servants will again stay there at night and she can as well. This story demonstrates more about how North operates: He digs into the past, finds out much about the residents and their history (here, about how the story of the haunted house got started), sets up an elaborate scheme (as usual involving, often unknowingly, several other characters), and carries it to its successful conclusion.

Flora Deland, a gossip columnist, originally a part of the Newport colony but now an outsider, digging around trying to uncover juicy items for her national gossip columns. She is not a bad person, but her parties are wild “flapper” affairs at which much liquor and indiscretion may flow. She is the object of gossip herself, but North helps her, as he helps so many others, to acquire a better reputation.

Dr. James McHenry Bosworth, a seventy-four-year-old widower and former diplomat who is trapped in his own mansion, Nine Gables, by his family and servants. Dr. Bosworth is interested in philosophy, which he and North read together. As usual, this job soon turns into more, and North helps to free this bright and vibrant man from the prison of his own estate.

Persis Tennyson, Dr. Bosworth's granddaughter, who lives on his estate with her son in a small cottage. North is half in love with Persis himself but works instead to fix her up with Bodo Stams. First, he must clear her name. She is a widow who lost her husband when he shot himself, not out of despondency, but rather, as North proves, because of his own reckless way of living. Persis really loved her husband but lives hidden under the shadow cast by his tragic death until North proves that it was an accident and not suicide.

Baron Bodo von Stams, an Austrian diplomat who summers with friends in Newport. Convivial and loyal, cultured and intelligent, Stams gets as close to North as anyone in Newport does, and he helps North in several of his adventures. In return, North helps Stams to win Persis, with whom he is in love, and the novel closes on the expectation that the two will marry.

Henry Simmons, a British manservant who first befriends North in a pool hall and then introduces him to other people in Newport who become his friends and confidants.

Amelia Cranston, the owner of a servants' boardinghouse, the woman who knows more about what is going on in Newport, and about what has gone on in the past, than perhaps anyone else. Her relations with the chief of police and other officials in the town allow her access to information and assistance when she needs either. She helps North in several of his adventures, and the parlor of her boardinghouse acts as the hub of the wheel for North during this summer.

Edweena Wills, Henry Simmons' fiancée, a woman with whom North spent one night at the end of World War I. Neither of them allows Simmons to learn of this liaison, and the three remain friends. Wills is a ladies' maid who has risen to be respected as the epitome of her profession and now also owns several dress shops and has gained financial independence.

Colonel Nicholas “Rip” Vanwinkle, a World War I flying ace and a classmate of North at Yale. He hires North to help him with his German, for his remaining life's desire is to return to Berlin for a reunion of the flyers on both sides in the air wars of World War I. Vanwinkle is a prime example of what wealth does to a man; in this case, it is his wife's wealth. A true war hero, he is trapped by his wife's wealth, but North helps him to begin to free himself.

Charles Fenwick, a shy and precocious teenager whom North frees from his adolescent hangups about sex. Thanks to North's help, Fenwick is permanently changed and ends his chapter speaking French easily with his tutor and holding sophisticated conversations with his parents.

Myra Granberry, a young woman to whom North reads the classics. She slowly comes to read and enjoy them on her own. What North does in the Granberry household is another one of his miraculous metamorphoses: He gets George Granberry to give up his mistress and recommit himself to his pregnant and insecure wife.

Benjamino “Mino” Matera, a brilliant young man who lost both feet in a childhood accident and is confined to the store/house of his Italian family. He earns money by devising clever puzzles for newspapers. North gets Matera to overcome his self-consciousness about his handicap. By the end of his chapter, he is relating to others much more easily, particularly to women.

Alice, the unhappy wife of a sailor. North meets her in a restaurant one night. She is convinced that her problems will be solved if she has a baby, and North tries to oblige her.

Miss Elspeth Skeel, the young heir of The Deer Park, an extensive estate containing myriad examples of animal life. She suffers from terrible migraine headaches. North shows that her attacks are the result not of medical problems but rather of the hermetic conditions in which she is kept by her strict Danish father. North “lays hands” on Skeel and cures her, but his success owes less to any shamanistic abilities than to the honest way in which he treats her and the hope that he gives her for her future.