The Wanting Seed Characters

Twenty-nine years old, attractive, and dead-set on being a mother, Beatrice-Joanna stands out like a sore thumb in the dystopian, anti-reproduction society she inhabits. More than that, her convent...

As one of two protagonists of The Wanting Seed, Tristram shares a lot of the limelight with his wife, Beatrice-Joanna. Even so, his character is much more fully developed than hers, and as the nove...

Wahab is the live-in companion of Prime Minister Starling—the narrator calls him the Prime Minister's "catamite," in fact (3.1.1). One night, when the Prime Minister wakes from nightmares of glob...

Dr. Acheson and his secretary, Miss Herschhorn, are Beatrice-Joanna's contacts at the State Health Service where her son has died. As with many human characters throughout the novel, the narrator d...

When Tristram first meets Father Ambrose (if that is his real name), he's sitting in a pub getting drunk. "A saturnine man with eyes in charcoal caves" with a "reddish beak" and a "sulky Stuart mou...

After Tristram survives the British Army massacre in West Ireland, he waits out his army contract, then heads to London to be discharged. At the War Office, he meets with Major Berkeley, who happil...

Charlie Linklater is the last of Tristram's cellmates in prison, and the one who hatches the plan for Tristram's escape. In characteristic style, the novel's narrative voice can't seem to decide wh...

Tristram's elder brother and Beatrice-Joanna's secret lover, Derek Foxe is a man to be reckoned with. He's built a sky-rocketing career and an impeccable reputation by pretending to be gay (or Beat...

Lieutenant Dollimore is a platoon commander in the British Army, and the man in charge of Tristram's outfit once he gets shuffled from the training studio into a rifle company. Dollimore isn't abou...

Dymphna and Llewelyn are Shonny and Mavis's children. They're pretty good kids, all things considered: they've learned to keep their parents' secrets, and their aunt's too, and when one of their cl...

The only woman in the Foxe sibling clan, Emma lives and works in China. She isn't really present throughout the novel, but through her letters to Tristram, we learn that "really frightening measure...

Wiltshire is the man who gets the promotion that Tristram was hoping for, and as the new Head of the Social Studies Department, he doesn't waste any time before telling Tristram to watch what he sa...

The eldest of the four Foxe siblings (that's way too many siblings, as far as the Ministry of Infertility is concerned), George works "on an agricultural station near Springfield, Ohio" (2.1.11). L...

As the English people begin to resort to cannibalism and pagan fertility rites, the central government is toppled, and Prime Minister Ockham takes Prime Minister Starling's Place. It's safe to say...

When Tristram's rifle company is shipped who-knows-where to fight in glorious battle, Corporal Haskell is the only one who recognizes the landscape. After telling Tristram that he's sure they're so...

One of the officers of the Population Police who accompany Captain Loosley on his mission to capture Beatrice-Joanna, Sergeant Image meets an untimely end when local villagers stop the police van a...

Joscelyne is Principal at the school where Tristram works. He's a West Virginia man with "a good degree from the University of Pasadena" (1.8.1). He's bald, he twitches, he's lived "a life of blame...

Sergeant Lightbody is Tristram's one real friend and ally in the British Army, and he's just as sure as Tristram is that the "war" they're being sent to is a scam. Unfortunately, Lightbody can't th...

Even within The Wanting Seed, Mr. Livedog is a fictional character. In fact, he's the protagonist of an adventure serial called The Adventures of Mr. Livedog, which is published in a funny, rollick...

We like to think that Captain Loosley looks a little like Hercule Poirot—after all, he's short and has a moustache (1.5.17), and he's a pretty committed investigator too. Unfortunately for him, h...

Mavis is Beatrice-Joanna's sister, who lives in Northern Province with her husband and two children. Although she can't bring herself to turn Beatrice-Joanna away when she comes to her for help and...

Prime Minister Starling doesn't have very many morals, but he does have a few. If possible, he would rather convince the English to people to stop reproducing, instead of killing them off in droves...

An old friend of Shonny and Mavis's, and a "seedsman by trade" (3.8.1), Father Shackel is a rural man of the cloth who continued to minister to Catholic believers even after Christianity was outlaw...

Shonny is Beatrice-Joanna's brother-in-law, and, unlike his wife Mavis, he's thrilled to hide his sister-in-law on their property. An agricultural officer like Tristram's brother George, Shonny is...

After he escapes from prison, Tristram meets a "donnish man" at an open-air dining club in the city (4.1.15). He's a kind soul—despite the fact that he's clearly a cannibal and a murderer—and h...

Another of the Population Police officers who accompany Captain Loosely on his mission to capture Beatrice-Joanna, Young Oxenford manages not to get eaten by rural villagers. They do steal his clot...