Mother

The narrator's mother takes over the business when Jacob loses his sanity. She has little dialogue, expect when the narrator confronts her about his father. She lies and says that Jacob is not dead, but traveling. She suffers from migraines. Mother is an important background character in the life of the house. She is written as a capable woman, but not nearly as capable as the lower class servant, Adela, who is the real woman of the house.

The Narrator

The narrator relives his childhood with nostalgia and acute observation of details. His memories are a combination of reality and imagination. Though as a child he sided with his family against the embarrassment of his father's exuberant insanity, as a man he looks back with compassion and shame at the way his father was dealt with. He also understands better what his father was going through in a...