Christopher Knight

Knight is the main character of the book. He is intelligent, resourceful, methodical and precise. He loves systems and perfecting systems. He is distressed by social interactions and cannot look people in the eye. Finkel describes his spoken language as quiet, precise, formal and lyrical. Fellow inmates tell him he talks like a book. He says he left society for no other reason than because he wanted to. Later, he describes himself as a square peg that everyone else is trying to smash and fit into a round hole (180).

He survives both the physical ordeals of winter and the challenges of not getting caught because of his resourcefulness and his discipline. In winter, he sticks to a daily routine of waking up at 2:00 am in order to avoid freezing to death. He has systems for storing his food, burying his garbage, and staying clean. He tells...