Robert Michel

The main character and narrator in "Blow-Up" is Robert Michel, who describes himself as a French-Chilean translator. He is an amateur photographer on the side, too. The reader knows he is highly educated because of the analytical way he narrates the story and the moments when he refers to figures such as the French surrealist poet Guillaume Apollinaire. During a walk along the river Seine, Michel spies a blond woman who appears to be flirting with a teenage boy. He gets caught up in their interaction and attempts to fill in the blanks by speculating and inserting his opinions about their interactions. He snaps a photo of the scene and becomes particularly fascinated by it, enlarging the photo several times and putting it up in his home. Michel eventually becomes absorbed in the photo as if it were playing out without his initial interference. By the end of the story, it is unclear what is real and what is imagined by Michel. His artistic background—as well as his role as a translator—seem to have influenced his perception of the world around him. 

The Boy

A young teenager, described by Michel as somewhere in the range of fourteen to sixteen, is one part of the scene on the River Seine. He appears to be well-dressed and looks like an average boy of his age. He cowers while receiving attention from the older blond woman. Michel interprets his hesitation as nervousness due to the woman’s flirting, and he thinks that at any moment the boy could either bolt or touch her. When the woman and man are distracted by Michel, he makes a break for it and escapes the situation. 

The Blond Woman

The woman with blond hair is described as “willowy” and with a “white, bleak face.” Though the reader (nor Michel) cannot hear what she is saying to the boy, her body language indicates she is trying to get close to him. At first, Michel thinks their age difference is great enough that the blond woman is the boy’s mother—he later recants this assumption. Michel says she is “almost handsome,” a descriptor that indicates something is off about her. When Michel takes the photo, she is irritated and hostile. She even demands that Michel give her the film since he had no right to take the picture in the first place.

The Man in the Gray Hat 

When observing the interaction between the blond woman and the boy, Michel notices a man with a gray hat sitting in a car nearby. He seems to be either asleep or reading a newspaper. The man steps out of his car to join the scene when the blond woman demands that Michel hand over the film. He wears a grimace and thin-soled shoes that look to be hurting his feet. From Michel’s account, the man never says anything, yet enters into a “silent conversation” with the woman when he stands off to the side. Michel later believes that he is orchestrating the whole interaction, though the precise nature of the trio's relationship remains unclear.