A Great and Terrible Beauty Characters: Full List & Analysis

Who drives the story

Main characters

Gemma Doyle

A sixteen-year-old from Bombay whose visions predict death and whose power opens doors between worlds. She wants the truth about her mother and gets it — including the parts that make forgiveness the hardest magic of all.

Appears in:: Part 1: A Vision in the Bombay Market; Part 2: The Outcast, the Queen, and a Warning; Part 3: Mary Dowd's Diary and the Door to the Realms; Part 4: Circe, the Creature, and the Price of Staying
Themes:: Mothers, sins, and the possibility of forgiveness; Illusion versus reality — and who gets to choose; Sisterhood as survival strategy

Ann Bradshaw

Gemma's scholarship-student roommate, poor and plain, treated like a servant by the other girls. She wishes for beauty, because in her world beauty is the only currency she's been denied.

Appears in:: Part 2: The Outcast, the Queen, and a Warning; Part 3: Mary Dowd's Diary and the Door to the Realms; Part 4: Circe, the Creature, and the Price of Staying
Themes:: The cage of Victorian girlhood; Sisterhood as survival strategy

Felicity Worthington

Spence's queen, ruthless and magnetic, guarding a secret that could ruin her. She wishes for power — and in the realms, for once, she isn't asking anyone's permission.

Appears in:: Part 2: The Outcast, the Queen, and a Warning; Part 3: Mary Dowd's Diary and the Door to the Realms; Part 4: Circe, the Creature, and the Price of Staying
Themes:: The cage of Victorian girlhood; Sisterhood as survival strategy

Pippa Cross

Beautiful, fragile, engaged to a much older man she doesn't love. She chooses her illusion-prince over her real life, and it kills her.

Appears in:: Part 2: The Outcast, the Queen, and a Warning; Part 3: Mary Dowd's Diary and the Door to the Realms; Part 4: Circe, the Creature, and the Price of Staying
Themes:: The cage of Victorian girlhood; Power and its corruption; Illusion versus reality — and who gets to choose

Kartik

The young man from the Bombay market, a member of the Rakshana brotherhood sent to watch Gemma. He warns her to shut her visions down, then keeps helping her anyway.

Appears in:: Part 1: A Vision in the Bombay Market; Part 2: The Outcast, the Queen, and a Warning; Part 4: Circe, the Creature, and the Price of Staying
Themes:: Power and its corruption

Gemma's mother / Mary Dowd

A survivor of the original Order's fire who faked her death and hid in the realms. She was once Mary Dowd — and once, the diary says, she sacrificed a child.

Appears in:: Part 1: A Vision in the Bombay Market; Part 3: Mary Dowd's Diary and the Door to the Realms; Part 4: Circe, the Creature, and the Price of Staying
Themes:: Mothers, sins, and the possibility of forgiveness; Power and its corruption

Circe / Sarah Rees-Toome

Mary's former best friend, corrupted by the Order's power, the sorceress whose name made Gemma's mother panic in a market half a world away.

Appears in:: Part 1: A Vision in the Bombay Market; Part 3: Mary Dowd's Diary and the Door to the Realms; Part 4: Circe, the Creature, and the Price of Staying
Themes:: Mothers, sins, and the possibility of forgiveness; Power and its corruption

How they are connected

Key relationships

Ann Bradshaw Gemma Doyle
Gemma's scholarship-student roommate, poor and plain, treated like a servant by the other girls.
Ann Bradshaw Gemma's mother / Mary Dowd
Gemma's scholarship-student roommate, poor and plain, treated like a servant by the other girls.
Kartik Gemma Doyle
The young man from the Bombay market, a member of the Rakshana brotherhood sent to watch Gemma.
Circe / Sarah Rees-Toome Gemma Doyle
Mary's former best friend, corrupted by the Order's power, the sorceress whose name made Gemma's mother panic in a market half a world away.
Circe / Sarah Rees-Toome Gemma's mother / Mary Dowd
Mary's former best friend, corrupted by the Order's power, the sorceress whose name made Gemma's mother panic in a market half a world away.

Go deeper

A Great and Terrible Beauty themes & symbols

The cage of Victorian girlhood · Mothers, sins, and the possibility of forgiveness · Power and its corruption · Illusion versus reality — and who gets to choose

Themes explained

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