Del Jordan

Del is the central character in the story and its narrator. She is a girl with innumerable questions about the world, the answers to which she likes to learn through listening and observing people. Even when her observations are off base, she is glad to have something with which to fill the hole it question previously made.

Del Jordan is something of a rebel. She fights against the social norms of Jubilee and of her mother's oppressive attitude, which is in keeping, generally, with the social constraints of Jubilee, although Del's mother is also a social rebel in many ways. Del rebels against her mother's ways of thinking, too, although she comes to realize that she is not entirely different from her mother.

Del's fascination with words is a cornerstone of her personality. She explains the world through words, universes that Del prefers over the oppressive reality...