Philip Carey

Philip Carey, a clubfooted orphan boy reared by relatives under strict and pietistic conditions. The result of this rearing, and of his physical disability as well, is a retiring and idealistic boy who has ahead of him a long battle to overcome the inhibitions with which his aunt and uncle have saddled him and the lack of physical confidence that comes from his misshapen foot. To find his place in life, he tries many professions: clerk, medical student, art student—the list is quite long. He also listens eagerly to somewhat older friends who, supposedly, can tell him what life means. Through them, he learns that art and literature, morals and religion, are relative to the observer and that even the great truths of philosophers suffer similar limitations. Philip’s emotional education is the work of several women, chief among them Mildred Rogers and Sally Athelney. Life with Sally and medical practice in a small English town finally make up Philip’s “figure in the carpet,” which, according to a friend, each person must discover alone.

William Carey

William Carey, Philip’s uncle, an Anglican clergyman. Poorly equipped to rear a child, he is represented as fairly ignorant, thoroughly selfish, and completely hypocritical.

Louisa Carey

Louisa Carey, William’s wife and Philip’s aunt, a timid woman who fears to reveal to Philip how much she cares for him. An inheritance from her gives Philip needed funds at one point in his life.

Miss Wilkinson

Miss Wilkinson, a friend of the Careys, a governess on holiday from her winter post in Germany. It is she who initiates Philip into the life of love, but Philip soon finds her distasteful and has no more to do with her.

G. Etheredge Hayward

G. Etheredge Hayward, Philip’s friend for many years. Philip first meets Hayward in Germany and constantly draws on Hayward’s wider knowledge for ideas about life and books. He finally comes to see Hayward as a hollow man.

Fanny Price

Fanny Price, an older art student of Philip’s Paris years. She does more than guide Philip’s artistic education; her suicide reveals to him the pain of her hopeless love for him, as well as the cruelty of love in general. Philip accepts as axiomatic the idea that in love there is always someone who loves and someone who lets himself be loved.

Cronshaw

Cronshaw, a Parisian friend and a poet. It is he who reveals to Philip “the figure in the carpet”: the truth that each person must make out his own pattern in the carpet that life spreads before him.

Mildred Rogers

Mildred Rogers, a waitress in a London teashop. Philip meets her during his early days as a medical student; from then on, Mildred exercises a monstrous power over him. Although she is vain, ignorant, and mildly ugly, he is utterly unable to resist the power of her whims or requests. She drains him of money, comes back to him when her own love affairs go badly, and senselessly ruins many of his possessions in a mad fury.

Norah Nesbit

Norah Nesbit, a divorcée. A hack writer, a little older than Philip, she instructs him in taste and loves him truly. As usual, when Philip is loved, he cannot love in return.

Harry Griffiths

Harry Griffiths, a handsome friend of Philip who takes Mildred away from him for a time.

Thorpe Athelney

Thorpe Athelney, a patient and an older friend of Philip. The humility and the wisdom of the man, his acceptance of a low place in life, and the routine pleasures of his family are what finally reveal to Philip his share...