WIlliam Stoner
Stoner begins his university education as an unmotivated person who finds himself in a mandatory English class where the professor assigns him a sonnet to study by Shakespeare. After this, he realizes that literature is his calling, and he falls in love with language, but although he gets a higher education, eventually becoming a professor himself, he dies having only contributed a single manuscript.
Archer Sloane
When Dr. Sloane finds Stoner in his class, the boy is still convinced that he will study Agrarian Sciences and then return home to his parents' farm, but when he assigns Stoner the sonnet, he changes the young man's life.
Edith
A romantic interest of Stoner's whom he wears down slowly over time. But, this young woman is cold and calculated, and her stand-offish demeanor makes Stoner uncomfortable but curious. She doesn't think highly of his parents' agrarian background. They end up married and hating each other.
Grace
Stoner has a daughter with his wife Edith, but Edith's post-partum depression makes her extremely jealous of Grace's affection toward Stoner. Grace and Stoner's relationship falls under attack, and as she grows up, Edith's abuse becomes localized just against her. She is harassed by her mother about her weight, and when she goes off to college, she loses her husband in WWII and drops out.
Katherine Driscoll
Stoner is not completely without love. Although his wife is an abusive person, this new young professor is draw to him, and they start an affair that keeps them both happy, until they are caught and Katherine departs from the town, shamed by her colleagues.
