Protagonist

Character Role Analysis

Roland Mitchell, Maud Bailey, Randolph Henry Ash, Christabel LaMotte

Yeah, Shmoopers, there's not one single protagonist here. We're gonna have to go with four protagonists, so get geared up for it.

Possession kicks off with Roland Mitchell's unexpected discovery in the London Library, and it ends with the completion of his modern-day "quest" to unearth the lost narrative of Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte's love affair. Although Roland feels a little bit like he's been displaced from his own story by the end of things, there's no question that he numbers among the novel's best and brightest heroes.

Maud Bailey is a latecomer to Possession's central "quest," but it isn't long before she's established as an indispensable co-researcher—or co-conspirator, depending on your point of view. Of course, as the novel draws to a close, we learn that not only has Maud been a savvy and stalwart ally to Roland, but their quest also concerned her identity and heritage all along.

Randolph Henry Ash may be long dead in Possession's twentieth-century scenes, but he's alive and well in most of the passages that whisk us back to the age of Queen Victoria. He might not get quite as much page time as Roland Mitchell, but he's still a protagonist in our book.

Finally, like Randolph Henry Ash, Christabel LaMotte has been dead for nearly 100 years by the time Roland Mitchell and Maud Bailey discover the remains of her love affair, but that doesn't stop her from being one of Possession's protagonists. Without the ghost-like presence of Christabel and Randolph hovering over every page of Possession, the novel simply couldn't work the way it does.