Caste Character Analysis

Isabel Wilkerson

Isabel Wilkerson is the author and narrator of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Wilkerson who is African American and therefore a member of what she deems the U.S.’s subordinate caste. Throughout the… read analysis of Isabel Wilkerson

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was a German dictator and the leader of the Nazi Party. He rose to power as Führer (“Leader”) in 1934. He initiated World War II in Europe by invading Poland in September of… read analysis of Adolf Hitler

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American activist and Baptist minister who brought his faith in the value of nonviolent resistance to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In 1955, King—a… read analysis of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee was the commander of the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. While Lee was considered a skilled tactician at the time, his rebellion against the United States ultimately failed. Yet following… read analysis of Robert E. Lee

Bhimrao Ambedkar

Bhimrao Ambedkar was born in India in the late 19th century to a family from the “Untouchable” caste—the bottommost rung of the Indian caste system. In spite of the circumstances of his birth, Ambedkar… read analysis of Bhimrao Ambedkar

Barack Obama

Barack Obama is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009–2017. He was the first Black person elected to the office. While his campaign messaging of… read analysis of Barack Obama

Donald Trump

Donald Trump is a “celebrity billionaire” who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017–2021. Some people believed that he was unqualified for the position, and his victory in the 2016 election… read analysis of Donald Trump

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton is an American political figure who served as the 67th U.S. Secretary of State; a U.S. senator; and the First Lady of the U.S. during her husband, Bill Clinton’s, presidency. She ran against… read analysis of Hillary Clinton

Satchel Paige

Satchel Paige was one of the greatest baseball pitchers of all time—but because he played in the first half of the 20th century, he was excluded from the major leagues and sidelined in the segregated… read analysis of Satchel Paige

Charles Stuart

Charles Stuart was a white man living in Boston who, in 1989, violently murdered his pregnant wife. Then, he shot himself in the stomach and claimed that an armed Black assailant had attacked them both… read analysis of Charles Stuart

Freddie Gray

In 2015 Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black man, was arrested in Baltimore after running away when he saw police patrolling his Baltimore neighborhood. He was later found to be in possession of a knife, though… read analysis of Freddie Gray

Tamir Rice

Tamir Rice was just 12 years old in 2014 when he was shot and killed by Cleveland police for playing with a toy gun in a public park. His murder—one in a string of many… read analysis of Tamir Rice

Cotton Mather

Cotton Mather was a Puritan minister and amateur scientist who lived in Boston in the early 1700s. When a smallpox outbreak struck the city, a man named Onesimus whom Mather had enslaved recommended an inoculation… read analysis of Cotton Mather

Onesimus

Onesimus was a man from West Africa who was enslaved by Cotton Mather. During an 18th-century smallpox epidemic, Onesimus suggested to Mather a method of preventing the disease that originated in his homeland. Onesimus’s… read analysis of Onesimus

Allison and Elizabeth Davis

Allison and Elizabeth Davis were a married Black couple who traveled to Natchez, Mississippi in the 1930s to conduct an immersive, groundbreaking anthropological study of caste in the Jim Crow South. Because the couple was… read analysis of Allison and Elizabeth Davis

The Plumber

The plumber visits Isabel Wilkerson’s old house to investigate a leak in the basement. He’s initially unhelpful and standoffish, which Wilkerson intuits is due to the underlying effects of casteism that impact all Americans… read analysis of The Plumber

Minor Characters

Miss Hale

Miss Hale is one of Wilkerson’s interview subjects. Her father gave her the first name “Miss” after growing up in the mid-20th century and witnessing how white people refused to call Black people by the honorifics “Miss” or “Mister.”

Wylie McNeely

Wylie McNeely was a Black teenager who was publicly burned alive in 1921 in East Texas.

Willie James Howard

Willie James Howard was a Black teenager who was lynched in 1943 after sending a Christmas card signed “L” (for “love”) to a white coworker at the dime store in Florida where he worked.

Mrs. Elliott

Mrs. Elliott was an elementary school teacher in 1960s Iowa. She conducted a caste-based experiment in her classroom by ranking students and affording them certain privileges based on their eye color. The exercise illustrated the arbitrary, unfair nature of casteism and racism in the U.S.

Tushar

Wilkerson met a man named Tushar—a member of the Kshatriya caste—at a conference on caste in London. Wilkerson and Tushar bonded over the idea of being “miscast” in their respective caste systems.

Burleigh and Mary Gardner

Burleigh and Mary Gardner were a married white couple who traveled to Natchez, Mississippi in the 1930s to conduct an anthropological study of caste in the Jim Crow South alongside Allison and Elizabeth Davis.

Heather Heyer

Heather Heyer was a Virginia woman who was killed at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August of 2017 after a white supremacist agitator drove his car into a crowd of counter-protestors. Heyer was 32 years old at the time of her death.

Gwen Ifill

Gwen Ifill was an American journalist, newscaster, and writer. In 1999, she became the first African American woman to host a nationally televised politics and public affairs program.

Caste Characters