Clare Savage
Clare is the protagonist of the novel. She is a twelve-year-old mixed race girl. Her white father is fairly well-off, so she belongs to a comfortable social class. When she visits her grandmother in Jamaica for the holidays, she is plagued by questions of her racial identity and what her ancestors truly experienced in recent history. She's an intelligent, precocious child who is determined to be the champion of the underprivileged and oppressed peoples.
Grandmother
Clare's grandmother lives in Jamaica. She's a venerable, wise woman who wants to instill in Clare an understanding of her heritage. Grandmother is Clare's maternal grandmother. She never told Clare's mom, Kitty, the stories of slavery which she knows.
Zoe
Zoe is Clare's best friend. She is a black girl from an underprivileged family who attends school with Clare. Zoe has a unique perspective on life and society due to her personal experiences with prejudice and oppression. Through her friendship, Clare learns to read the world with a more broad lens of identity and social expectations.
Kitty Savage
She is Clare's mom. Kitty is a black woman, the daughter of Clare's grandmother in Jamaica. Since she's married to a white man, Kitty no longer deals with present discrimination. Still, she identifies strongly with her people and their continuing struggle with colonization. Kitty remains silent on racial issues around Clare because she doesn't want her daughter to grow up with a victim mentality, knowing the hateful world of the white man.
Mr. Cross
Mr. Cross is a character in Michelle Cliff's "Abeng" who represents the colonial and societal structures that shape Clare Savage's world. As a figure associated with the establishment and its influence, Mr. Cross embodies the power dynamics and racial hierarchies of the colonial era. His interactions with Clare and her family underscore the tensions between the colonial rulers and the Jamaican populace, highlighting the broader themes of oppression and resistance that pervade the novel. His presence serves as a catalyst for Clare’s deeper understanding of the complexities of her identity and the socio-political landscape of Jamaica during the 1950s.
