A Circle in the Fire (Characters)

Characters

Powell Boyd

Powell is a teenage boy about thirteen years old whose father used to work on Mrs. Cope's farm. Powell's family moved away from the farm sometime before the story occurs. His father has died, his mother has remarried and is working outside the home, and the family is living in an apartment complex in Atlanta. Powell arrives on the farm unannounced, along with two friends. It becomes clear that his only happy memories are of his childhood on the farm and the horses he rode there. Left alone all summer in what sounds from the boys' descriptions like a tenement, Powell longed for the farm and regaled his friends with stories about it. According to Powell, his uncle has driven the boys to the farm for a visit.

From the moment of the boys' arrival on the farm, it is clear to readers, and the other characters, that Powell and his friends despise Mrs. Cope for what she has that they do not and for her false courtesy. Powell is well aware that with his friends in tow, Mrs. Cope is powerless to stop him from doing as he pleases on her farm. He has come to the farm realizing there is nothing to keep him from fulfilling his dream of enjoying all it has to offer, albeit temporarily.

Mrs. Cope

Mrs. Cope seems to be a widow. She owns a large farm and has several people working for her, including Mr. and Mrs. Pritchard and at least two African Americans. She is a small, thin woman whose large eyes give her the appearance of someone who is "continually being astonished."

Mrs. Cope has a neat conception of the world and her place in it, a conception rooted in religious ideas. She believes that hard work, optimism, and thanking God every day for all she has will keep calamity at bay. She views virtually every other human being and every event as either an irritation or a threat, but she is convinced that all these problems can be overcome as long as she is diligent and superficially pleasant. Authentic compassion and a true understanding of human nature are not among her resources.

It becomes clear that Mrs. Cope's neat vision of the world is mistaken. When the boys show up on the farm, all her responses to them are based on a complete misapprehension of their feelings and intentions. Therefore, every encounter she has with the boys makes her ruin more inevitable.

Sally Virginia Cope

Sally Virginia is Mrs. Cope's twelve-year-old daughter. She is fat and pale and wears braces. She is a sullen, sour girl who spends a lot of time in her room upstairs, listening and watching out the window as the story unfolds. This child is as aware of her mother's ignorance as are the adult characters in the story, and her response is to be rude and unresponsive toward her mother. However, she also hates the boys. Taking two pistols with her, she sets off threatening to track down the boys to force them to leave — that is, to do what her mother has failed to do — but instead she hides when she finds them and sees them set the fire. Her inability to exert her will over the boys makes her miserable, and for the first time she sees the similarity between herself and her mother.

Culver

Culver is an African American hired hand — identified in the story as a Negro — who works for Mrs. Cope. He listens to her but refuses to look at her, showing a bare minimum of respect. When the fire has been set and Mrs. Cope orders him to hurry to try to put it out, Culver only replies, "It'll be there when we git there."

W. T. Harper

W. T. is one of the boys who visit the farm with Powell. He is the smallest of the three boys. Shortly after arriving, W. T. tells Mrs. Cope that Powell has told the others he will let them ride the horses at the farm. This statement is an early indication that Powell has no intention of respecting Mrs. Cope's authority.

Just before the boys start the fire, W. T. says he wishes he lived on the farm. This remark, an acknowledgement of what all the boys feel, leads Powell to start the fire so that this paradise they long for no longer exists for anyone.

Hollis Pritchard

Hollis is Mrs. Pritchard's husband. During the course of the boys' visit, Mrs. Pritchard reports to Mrs. Cope her husband's futile efforts to keep the boys from causing trouble.

Mrs. Pritchard

Mrs. Pritchard, along with her husband, works for Mrs. Cope on the farm. She is described as being Mrs. Cope's physical opposite, a large woman with small, beady eyes. She is, in fact, Mrs. Cope's foil in every way. Mrs. Pritchard expects catastrophe and revels in it when it comes. Though Mrs. Cope clearly thinks that Mrs. Pritchard is her inferior in every way, Mrs. Pritchard judges the boys and their intentions correctly at every turn, and she repeatedly tries to warn Mrs. Cope that disaster is imminent.

Garfield Smith

Garfield is one of Powell's friends who visit the farm with him. He is the biggest of the three boys, smokes cigarettes, and has a tattoo. Just before the boys start the fire, when W. T. says he wishes he lived on the farm, Garfield says that he is glad he does not live there and that "it don't belong to nobody." These denials are an attempt to make himself and the other boys feel better about the reality that they cannot live on the farm.