The Holy Innocents: main and minor CHARACTERS

On The Holy Innocents, Miguel Delibes reflects the social differentiation that existed between the different strata of Spain in the early twentieth century. This is how we find two important groups where we could include all the characters main parts of the work, which we could call, for example, as: the peasants and the landowners. In a Professor we wanted to provide a complete list of the most important main and secondary characters of The Holy Innocents, accompanied by a brief description of each of them.

Index

1. Contrast in the characters: peasants and landowners
2. Azarías, the protagonist of The Holy Innocents
3. Paco, the Bass
4. Señorito Ivan
5. Regulation
6. Children of Régula and Paco
7. Other landowners
8. Birds of the Holy Innocents

On The Holy Innocents by Miguel Delibes poor characters are often described as humble, submissive and kind people, always loyal to their masters. The clothes of these people are threadbare and dirty, as opposed to those of the upper class.

As for the landowners, the vast majority are presented as more selfish and authoritarian people. They believe that the peasants belong to them, feeling superior to them and showing significant contempt when dealing with any lower class character.

Within the main characters of The Holy Innocents we highlight Azarías, a disabled man that he is around sixty years old. He is defined in the play as a animal lover, who perfectly understands their feelings and needs and shows an amazing empathy for them.

Likewise, not only does this kindness remain in birds (animals to which man feels more attached), but he also feels special respect for kind people. All in all, Azarías is a person of very good heart that he does not quite understand the functioning of social habits, which leads to a series of inconveniences in his life, such as being fired from his job.

Paco is the husband of Régula and brother-in-law of Azarías. He is a good submissive man who always tries to satisfy Iván's wishes, being loyal to him in all his requests. Above all, Paco is an obedient and generous person, serving the farmhouse to feed his family and always standing up for his brother-in-law Azarías.

Finally, Iván recognizes an exceptional utility in hunting by Paco, since he has a very good sense of smell and manages to attract or track prey with total efficiency.

The Mr. Ivan is another of the characters of The Holy Innocents, a landowner with a passion for hunting, is described in Delibes's work as a character arrogant and self-centered. Moreover, the behavior that she has before the servants (among which is Azarías and his family) is of total authority, contempt and superiority to them, despite the fact that she is practically dependent on them to everything.

Regula is the sister of Azarías, which she decides to take over when he is fired from his job with Mr. Iván. She is a woman who cares about the well-being of her family and, especially, her children, of whom she wants them to study and get a more bearable life than hers as a peasant.

• Snows: Like her parents, Nieves is a submissive and obedient girl, who sacrifices her own interests for those of her masters. This is how she gives up studying at school to work as a maid.
• Quirce: Son of Régula and Paco, who managed to leave the farmhouse and go to school to get a better future than the one that awaits him as a servant in the farmhouse. He is the example to follow that his parents want for the rest of the siblings, since they want them to abandon life in the country studying something of profit.
• Rogelio: Contrary to the attitude of rebellion in front of the masters that Quirce shows, Rogelio is more submissive, like his parents, and is completely due to life in the farmhouse.
• Girl Girl: Niña Chica is how she knows Charito, the daughter of Régula and Paco. Due to her condition, she cannot communicate easily with other people, which unites her especially with the character of Azarías, since he feels a special appreciation for her.

Being a work that reflects social differences, in the characters of The Holy Innocents there are many landowners. Here is a list of the most outstanding ones:

• Peter the Perito: Doña Purita's husband. Pedro is a possessive man who rages at the disappearance of his wife, suspecting that he may have run away with another man, involving the peasants in the matter.
• Mrs. Purita: Landowner, who ends up in charge of Nieves (Azarías' niece), and who maintains an adulterous relationship with Señorito Iván.
• René: René is a foreign character from France, who thinks that his country is superior to the rest of Europe. Her ideals notoriously anger the rest of the masters, especially Mr. Ivan.
• Miss Miriam: Daughter of the Marchioness, she is the only person from the upper class who is horrified by the poverty that she sees in the house of Régula and her family. Azarías sees in her a trace of goodness, coming to introduce her to Milana.

We end with some secondary characters in Delibes' work that have a certain importance due to the relationship they have with the protagonist: the birds.

• Grand Duke: Owl that belongs to Señorito Iván and which Azarías is in charge of. The death of this animal is a turning point at the beginning of the work because it affects in a way important in the figure of the servant Azarías, despite the fact that Ivan does not show any kind of penalty for the situation.
• La Milana: Bird that appears in the life of Azarías after the death of the Grand Duke and the dismissal of his work by Iván. This other animal turns out to be another turning point in the work, this time at the end of it, since his death at the hands of Señorito Iván leads Azarías to end the life of the landowner.

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Delibes, M. (1981). The Holy Innocents.