Dom Casmurro

Characters

Character Map

Who is who, and who belongs to whom. Click a name to open the character page.

Bentinho Bento Santiago, Bentinho, is at once the one who tells the book and the one the book judges: the only son of Pedro de Albuquerque Santiago and of Dona Glória, raised under the promise that he would become a priest (chapter XI), in love since the age of... Capitu Capitu, Capitolina Pádua, is the neighbor and childhood love of Bentinho, the daughter of a civil servant nicknamed Tartaruga and of Dona Fortunata (chapter XV, chapter XVI), dark-skinned and curious about everything (chapter XXXI), and the woman whom... Escobar Ezequiel de Sousa Escobar enters the seminary of S. José as a classmate of Bentinho (chapter LVI), becomes his best friend (chapter LXV, chapter LXXVIII), marries Sancha, Capitu's school friend (chapter XCVIII), prospers in trade (chapter CXVII), and drowns... José Dias José Dias has been the dependent in Bentinho's household since he was barely born: he arrived in Itaguaí selling himself as a homeopathic doctor, later confessed to being a charlatan (chapter V), and stayed in the family out of a calculated mix of affection... Dona Glória D. Maria da Glória Fernandes Santiago is Bentinho's mother, widowed at thirty-one (chapter VII), devout, who raises her son alone at home, without school (chapter XI), to postpone as long as possible the separation she herself promised God. The whole seminary... Ezequiel Ezequiel is the only son of Bentinho and Capitu, named in honor of Escobar after Uncle Cosme takes the post of godfather for himself (chapter CVIII). His entire existence in the book comes down to the question Bentinho asks and never proves: whether or not he...

Other characters

Sancha: a young lady, school friend of Capitu and daughter of the widower Gurgel, whom Bentinho meets in the churchyard after having seen her visiting Capitu's house in chapter XLII (chapter LXX); she marries Escobar (chapter XCVIII), and her handshake, on the night before her husband's death, makes Bentinho feel "vertigo and sin" (chapter CXVIII).
Pádua: Capitu's father, a clerk in an office of the War Ministry, nicknamed Tartaruga (Tortoise) by José Dias; he threatens to kill himself when he loses the post of acting administrator, until Dona Glória stops him (chapter XVI), and on the morning of Bentinho's departure he asks him for a keepsake and receives a lock of hair for his daughter (chapter LII).
Dona Fortunata: Pádua's wife and Capitu's mother, who advised her husband to buy the house with the lottery prize (chapter XVI); she comes upon Capitu and Bentinho's hairdo and smiles, distrustful (chapter XXXIV).
Cousin Justina: a widowed relative who lives in Dona Glória's house out of charity; she speaks badly of José Dias and of Capitu, but refuses to remind her cousin of the promise or to ask that it be undone (chapter XXI, chapter XXII), and releases an epigram against Capitu when she looks after the sick woman (chapter LXVI).
Uncle Cosme: Dona Glória's brother, a criminal lawyer and widower, who lives in her house and plays voltarete with Father Cabral (chapter VI, chapter XXXV); he takes for himself the post of Ezequiel's godfather (chapter CVIII).
Father Cabral: Bentinho's old Latin teacher, named apostolic protonotary (chapter XXXV); he argues that the vocation may come later (chapter XXXIX), proposes the middle way of two years in the seminary (chapter L) and, after consulting the bishop, declares valid the exchange of Bentinho for an orphan (chapter XCVII).
Gurgel: a widower, Sancha's father and a grocer on Rua da Quitanda, who receives Bentinho at home and shows him the portrait of his wife, who resembles Capitu (chapter LXX, chapter LXXXIII); Bentinho will later recall his words about inexplicable resemblances (chapter CXL).
Marcolini: an old Italian tenor, past his voice, who dines with Bentinho and sets out the theory that life is an opera, with God as poet and Satan as conductor (chapter IX).
Manduca: a neighbor on Matacavalos, sick with leprosy, with whom Bentinho had exchanged letters about the Crimean War; he dies at eighteen or nineteen, on an occasion when Bentinho was returning from Gurgel's house, where Capitu was (chapter LXXXIV, chapter LXXXV, chapter XC).
Manduca's parents: the father, gray-haired and poorly dressed, calls Bentinho from the door of a crockery shop to see his dead son; the mother weeps in a corner, and Bentinho repeats under his breath her phrase, "Poor Manduca!" (chapter LXXXIV, chapter LXXXV, chapter LXXXVIII).
The Emperor: Pedro II, whose carriage passes while Bentinho's bus stops; the boy daydreams that he will go to Dona Glória's house to ask that her son not become a priest (chapter XXIX).
The horseman: a dandy on a chestnut horse who passes under Capitu's window and turns his head toward her, which awakens Bentinho's second jealousy; Capitu later says she does not know him and that he is going to marry a young lady from Rua dos Barbonos (chapter LXXIII, chapter LXXVI).