The main character in George Orwell’s Coming Up For Air is George Bowling. He is a middle-aged man, complacent in his life. He works as an insurance salesman and has a wife and two kids. The story is told from his point of view, as he looks back on his life (and travels to Lower Binfield, his childhood home). His wife, Hilda Bowling, is a serious, somewhat depressed woman. Their life, with its struggles with money and children, have made her persistently worried, and their marriage has made them both unhappy.

Elsie is George’s old girlfriend, a woman he remembers as beautiful and feminine. When he goes back and sees her, he finds that she is nothing like his memory; she has aged and lost the beauty and allure she once held. Old Porteus is George’s friend, an old school teacher whose depressing company and inability to see the present clearly sparks George’s interest in returning to happier times.