Kidnapped Characters

Davie is the be all and end all of Kidnapped – its alpha and omega – its beginning and ending. He's both the main character and the narrator. Not only do we get to watch Davie running a...

Alan is Davie's best buddy. He's the secondary character, the one who comes closest to competing with Davie's dominance of the plot. Alan is the necessary means by which Stevenson moves the plot fr...

The thing about adventure stories is that a lot of the characters are really just there to serve as mechanisms to move the plot forward. Stevenson's main characters have more meat on them, but he s...

Mr. Campbell has a very small part in the novel, appearing only in the first chapter to send Davie off to the house of Shaws. But he's hugely important as the model for Davie's moral development: i...

Jennet is pretty much just there to provide foreshadowing of terrible things to come. In Chapter 2, she tells Davie that "Blood built [the house of Shaws]; blood stopped the building of it; blood s...

In Chapter 15, when Davie is trying to cross the island of Mull, he has two bad encounters with Highlanders. The first is the guide, who keeps pretending to forget his English just long enough to e...

In Chapter 16, Davie falls in with a friendly local religious man who reminds him of Mr. Campbell, the Protestant minister from his hometown. This man really highlights all the things the Lowlands...

Hoseason is an interesting contradiction in terms (sound familiar yet?). He's a "great churchgoer while on shore" (9.22), and the name of his ship is associated with religion. (The Covenanters were...

John Breck is a tenant of Appin who helps Alan get a message to James Stewart asking for money in chapter twenty-one. He's a wild-looking man who speaks little English. He does get Alan's message t...

This is the second bad encounter Davie has on the island of Mull. He falls in with a blind man who turns out to be both a religious instructor and a highway robber. Davie manages to escape by prete...

When Davie essentially collapses after his big fight with Alan in Chapter 24, Duncan Dhu allows them to stay with him while Davie recovers.

Cluny Macpherson was a real-life Highland chief of the clan of Vourich (or Vurich). He fought for the Jacobites in 1745 then managed to stick around Scotland without being captured for ten years be...

This guy is the ferryman who brings Davie from Torosay (on Mull) to Kinlochaline (on the Scottish mainland) in Chapter 16. His function in the story is to tell Davie where to go next to find Alan....

Besides Mrs. Stewart (James Stewart's wife) and Jennet Clouston, the maid is pretty much the only woman who appears for any length of time in the novel. In fact, she has more lines than any other f...

Robin Oig is the son of famous real-life Scottish outlaw Rob Roy. He comes to visit Davie because he hears that Davie's name is Balfour. Robin owes another Balfour a debt for helping treat his brot...

Mr. Rankeillor is a lawyer residing in Queensferry. Davie finds him when he gets back there in Chapter 28. Rankeillor explains to Davie what the situation is with his inheritance, so he's mainly a...

Ransome is the cabin boy of the Covenant. He appears to be somewhat developmentally disabled, a condition made worse by the alcohol continually being pushed on him by second mate Mr. Riach. He rema...

Mr. Riach is the second mate of the Covenant, and yet another complex and contradictory man. He's a drunkard who gives cabin boy Ransome wine against all good sense – but he does it to be kin...

Mr. Shuan is another plot-propelling character. The first mate of the Covenant, he is a violent drunkard who winds up lashing out too severely one night and accidentally killing Ransome, the cabin...

James is Alan's clan chief, Ardshiel's half brother, and one of the prime suspects in the murder of Colin Roy (although the book claims that he's innocent). He appears in Chapter 19 completely terr...

Mr. Rankeillor's clerk and witness to Ebenezer's accidental confession that he arranged to have Davie kidnapped.