believes Jones’s story about the magic of the silver bullets but uses it against him. He has his people melt down coins to make silver bullets, outsmarts Jones to find him, and then has Jones shot.

An Old Native Woman

An Old Native Woman, who is left behind when the younger subjects of the emperor run away. Before she leaves, she tells Smithers that everyone is abandoning the emperor, whom she clearly still fears.

Jeff

Jeff, a dice-throwing pal of Jones back in the United States. It was for killing Jeff, after he had caught Jeff cheating at dice, that Jones was sent to prison. In his terror as he runs in circles through the jungle, Jones meets the ghost of Jeff and wastes one of his bullets trying to kill him again.

Jeff
Before the events of the play, Brutus Jones killed Jeff, a black man, during a dice game in the United States. Jeff appears in Scene III as one of Jones's hallucinations. He is described as brown-skinned, thin, middle-aged, and dressed in a Pullman porter's uniform. In Jones’s vision, Jeff mechanically rolls the dice.

Brutus Jones
Brutus Jones is the central character in "The Emperor Jones." He is a tall, powerfully built African American man in his middle years. Once a Pullman car porter in the United States, Jones escapes from an American prison, where he was held for killing a man over a dice game, and arrives on a West Indian island. There, he convinces the locals that he possesses magical powers and declares himself "emperor." Jones commands fear and respect through his imposing presence and ruthless rule. His eyes reflect exceptional cunning, intelligence, and shrewdness.

To enhance his regal appearance, Jones wears a light-blue uniform adorned with brass buttons, heavy gold chevrons, and braids. His trousers are bright red with a light-blue stripe down the side, and he sports patent leather boots with brass spurs. He also carries a long-barreled, pearl-handled revolver in a holster. Throughout the play, Jones speaks in a pronounced black dialect, exemplified by, ‘‘who dare whistle dat way in my palace?’’ He harbors deep contempt for Smithers, the previous white exploiter of the islanders.

Lem
Lem is a former chieftain on the island and leads the natives in their rebellion against Jones's tyrannical rule. Heavy-set, Lem appears only in the final scene, dressed in a loincloth with a revolver and cartridge belt around his waist. He despises Jones and once hired another native to assassinate him, but the gun misfired. Jones then claimed that only a silver bullet could kill him. As the play begins, Lem has persuaded the natives to create a silver bullet, and they spend the night mustering the courage to confront Jones. Ultimately, Lem and his men kill Jones in the forest, where Jones had been running frantically in circles, trying to escape.

Little Formless Fears
In the second scene, these imaginary creatures symbolize Jones’s initial hallucinations and represent his underlying anxieties. Described as "black" and "shapeless" like "a grubworm about the size of a creeping child," they have "glittering little eyes" that are visible. These shapes move silently but with deliberate, painful effort, attempting to stand upright but repeatedly failing and sinking back down. When these fears mock Jones with their laughter, he fires his gun at them, causing them to vanish.

Henry Smithers
Smithers is a tall, bald, stoop-shouldered Englishman from the Cockney area, around forty years old, who was exploiting the black natives before Brutus Jones arrived on the island. He has a long neck with a prominent Adam's apple resembling an egg. His naturally pale face has turned a sickly yellow due to a deep tan, and his nose is red from excessive drinking of native rum. Smithers has small, sharp features, including a pointed nose and tiny, red-rimmed eyes that dart around like a ferret’s. He is mean, cowardly, and dangerous—he fears Jones but is openly defiant to the extent he dares, and he is clearly delighted by Jones’s downfall.

Smithers carries a riding whip and wears a dirty white suit with a white cork helmet, along with a cartridge belt and revolver around his waist. He speaks in a British Cockney dialect, which O’Neill indicates through idioms and spellings like ‘‘I got me ’ooks [hooks or hands] on yer [you].’’

Witch Doctor
In Scene VII, Jones’s final hallucination includes a dancing and chanting shaman or medicine man from a primitive African society. The Witch Doctor is shriveled, old, and ‘‘naked except for the fur of some small animal tied about his waist, its bushy tail hanging down in front.’’ His body is stained a bright red, he wears antelope horns on his head, and he carries a bone rattle and a ‘‘charm stick’’ made of white cockatoo feathers. The Witch Doctor ultimately indicates that Jones must serve as the ritual sacrifice for a crocodile god that rises from the nearby river. However, Jones’s final act is to defy the sacrifice and shoot his pistol, firing the remaining silver bullet into the crocodile apparition.