Ben Meecham
Ben is the teller of the story and is the character based on the author himself. He is the oldest of the Meecham children and therefore given the most responsibility which he deeply resents because he also becomes responsible for his younger siblings' mis-behavior; if they transgress, he gets into trouble for not keeping a better eye on them. Resentment is the key emotion that Ben feels throughout his childhood, as well as fear, when it comes to his father.
The father/son relationship is the main topic of the book and of Ben's life. He is frightened of his father and feels that he is a dictator in the home. He is not able to respect him as he should because Bull is a bully and does not earn respect so much as demand it with emotional abuse. Ben is a sensitive child and quite the wrong son for Bull. He is everything that his father is not; he is gentle, kind, always seeking out the underdog and generally unconcerned with doing what is seen to be the right thing, concerning himself more with actually doing the right thing even if it is socially unpopular. He reaches out to the minority kids whom nobody else in his circle hangs out with. Ben is a gifted athlete and a varsity basketball player but not the typical jock. His father even tries to dictate his personal life by ordering him to take the daughter of a friend out on a date that neither of them wants to go on. Ben does not have a militaristic mentality and assumes he hates his father because this is his father's entire reason for being, but ironically he also craves his father's love and approval. After his father's death, he realizes that he actually loved his father very much but was just not aware of it and unable to process the complex emotions surrounding their relationship.
Bull Meecham
Bull is believed to be the author's father and he is a larger than life character with grandiose notions about himself. The fact that he created his own nickname - The Great Santini - shows that he views himself in the third person, as a character rather than as a regular person, and that he sees himself as far greater than those around him. He is a military man through and through, believing in tough love that seems to his children to be anything but love at all. He is a monstrous bully and treats his children like soldiers, demanding that they obey his barked orders instantaneously. He is not a bully when it comes to his wife and is actually meek in the presence of her instruction; whenever she corrects him he obeys, and has the utmost respect for her. He is profoundly cruel and sadistic and although he places enormous value on the lives of the men under him in the military, and of military lives in general, he does not respect of value the life of anything else. He seems to believe that he does love his children and this is the way in which he expresses it.
Lilian Meecham
Lilian is Ben's mother and although she is not bullied by Bull she definitely becomes a different person in his presence. Even before he comes home her demeanor shifts from a loving and approachable mom to a strict parent. She has a great deal of influence over her husband but never tries to soften his parenting which suggests that she tacitly approves of it; she gets the children to run around after her and barks orders at them in a similar way to that of her husband. Lilian is a Southern Belle for whom appearances are everything. She never fully commits emotionally to South Carolina and after Bull's death moves back to her home state of Georgia.
Ansley Matthews
Ansley is the daughter of one of Bull's friends and military colleagues. She has a tendency to date the quarterback of the football team and is drawn to jocks. Her father disapproves of this tendency and particularly dislikes the quarterback she is dating and so he and Bull decide that their children will date. Neither Ansley nor Ben wants to date the other although they are friends, and therefore manage to pretend that they are amenable to it. Ansley is actually deeply involved with her current boyfriend, who fights all comers when it comes to her affections.
