Dr. Louise Banks

The first-person narrator and protagonist of “Story of Your Life,” Dr. Louise Banks is a linguist, an expert in the structure of languages. Louise is one of the few researchers chosen to help decipher the language of the alien heptapods who arrive in Earth’s orbit. Louise’s account is addressed to “you,” her daughter, who, it is revealed early on, will die at the age of twenty-five. The reader is closely aligned with Louise’s viewpoint and discovers the layers of the plot as Louise chooses to uncover them. Louise is shown to be highly intelligent and empathetic, with a gift for unmasking the connections between language and knowledge systems. She treats the heptapods with kindness, never displaying any fear or mistrust of them, and she respects their language and consciousness. Responding to Dr. Gary Donnelly’s romantic interest in her with surprise, Louise reveals her reticent and reserved nature. As the plot progresses and Louise picks up the written language of the heptapods, Louise’s arc undergoes a major shift: She begins to think like a heptapod. This enables her to view the events of the next fifty years of her life nonsequentially and sometimes simultaneously, like “a half century-long ember burning outside time.”

One of the most poignant aspects of Louise’s newfound consciousness is that she can foresee her daughter’s death years before her conception. However, Louise still goes on to marry Gary and become a mother, choosing the brief happiness of her daughter’s life over her potential nonexistence. Louise’s knowledge of the future shows her that she and Gary will eventually divorce and that Louise will find a new partner, Nelson. Louise’s choice of motherhood, which she sometimes thinks of as creating a script which has already been written, showcases her fundamental humanity. Like humans everywhere, Louise chooses to find meaning in life despite her awareness of life’s fragility and impermanence. 

Dr. Gary Donnelly

Dr. Gary Donnelly is a physicist. Louise first sees him as a typical academic, complete with “full beard and mustache, wearing corduroy.” Gary and Louise are assigned to the same encampment around a heptapod looking glass. While Louise’s job is to decode the language of the heptapod, Gary works on uncovering their understanding of physics. Gary is shown to be keenly intelligent and driven in his work. Unlike the more reserved Louise, Gary is less self-conscious, spontaneously miming actions like walking and jumping to the heptapods on Louise’s request. Like Louise, Gary is deeply interested in the way the heptapods think. He is frequently shown to be annoyed at army and State Department officials who want to rush the academics’ studies or extract technology from the heptapods.

It is Gary who introduces Louise to Fermat’s principle of least time, which enables Louise to finally solve the puzzle of heptapod writing and consciousness. Eventually, Gary and Louise will marry, have a daughter together, and separate. The reasons for their separation are never spelled out, but Louise says the two will grow so far apart that by the time of their daughter’s death, they will be speaking to each other at best once a year. Gary provides a foil for Louise’s more introspective nature. Like Louise, his spirit of curiosity and kindness towards the heptapods illustrates the idea that the sciences and humanities are not polar opposites but rather complements of each other.

Colonel Weber

Decisive and brusque, Colonel Weber is the army official who first approaches Louise to decipher the recorded heptapod speech. Initially, Weber is reluctant to allow Louise direct contact with the heptapods, since he is afraid the aliens may steal human technology...