John
John is the main character and protagonist of Ellison's short story. Despite his job as a janitor, which requires few thinking skills, John is an intelligent man capable of complex thought. John is also an incredibly loyal man who deeply loves his one and only son, who he dutifully watches over. When he is not working at his job as a janitor, John spends most of the rest of time awake with his son. However, John is deeply worried about the state of the world and how poorly Black people are treated in the United States. As a result, he does his best to insulate his son from many of the same heartbreaks he has experienced in his life.
John's son
John's son is the other major character in Ellison's short story. Though he is only four or five years old, he is an uniquely perceptive kid capable of profoundly complex thought. He frequently asks his father questions about race, its relation to the community, and different people in his life. His father does the best to answer his son's questions, but is occasionally unable to fully satisfy his son's questions. It is the boy's actions that form the central conflict in the story, because it was the boy's ball that bounced into the window of his father's landlord, knocking over John's landlord's plant along the way. It was because of this action that the boy learned about racism, skin color, and race.
John's landlord
John's landlord is the main antagonist in the short story. He is a cruel, angry, and bitter man capable of doing tremendous harm to the people around him. He chastised John's son for making an innocent, childish mistake with a black ball. He subsequently chastised John for his son's mistake, reminding him that he will evict John and his son if his son made one more mistake.
The mysterious man
The mysterious man that enters the hotel at the start of Ellison's short story initially puzzles John. The mysterious man asks John how many "colored people" work at the hotel. John initially lies, fearing the man's intentions were not pure. But John quickly learns that the man's intentions are pure and that the man hopes to start a union at the hotel to benefit the people of color so that they will have better working conditions and better pay. The man, as it later turns out, had exhibited such kindness on a number of occasions to people of color. And on more than one occasion, the man had paid for his kindness and generosity with tremendous physical and mental pain (and the scars to prove both).
