Jubilee (novel) - Characters

Characters

• Sis Hetta - Vyry's mother; a slave, she dies in the novel's opening chapter, when Vyry is a very small child.
• Caline, May Liza, and Lucy - servants in the big house who work with Aunt Sally and Vyry. Lucy is Vyry's older half sister, by Hetta's slave husband. After being beaten and branded for running away, Lucy succeeds in escaping to freedom.
• John Morris Dutton - "Marse" or "Marster John," he was also the owner of the Dutton Plantation; his slave mistress, Sis Hetta, is Vyry's mother.
• Miss Salina - the wife of Marse John and mother of his two legitimate children. She is also known as Big Missy, and is cruel to the slaves.
• Vyry - the protagonist of the novel. She is a dynamic main character. Vyry is the daughter of Sis Hetta, who dies as the novel opens, and her master, John Dutton. She is a slave, but her skin is so fair she can "pass" as white. She is a solemn, generous woman who has many skills.
• Aunt Sally - a slave in the house on the Dutton Plantation. She is the cook and teaches Vyry everything she knows. She acts as a mother to Vyry.
• Randall Ware - a literate black man who was born free and is a blacksmith. He promises to marry Vyry and buy her freedom, but Marse John won't permit it.
• Jim, Minna, and Harry - Vyry’s children.
• Miss Lillian - the daughter of Marse John and Big Missy. She is about the same age as Vyry, her unacknowledged half sister, whom she strongly resembles. She and Vyry play together when they are little. Unlike her mother, she is not cruel but gullible and easily manipulated.
• Grimes - the overseer on the Dutton Plantation.
• Innis Brown - a slave freed by the war, who meets Vyry at the war's end, protects her from an attacker, and marries her legally.
• John Dutton Jr.- serves in the Confederate Army, gets shot during the war and dies at home.