Appropriately for a poem which takes solitude as its central theme, the poem has only one character: the speaker. This guide refers to the speaker as "she," although the poem does not actually specify a gender, because Philips often wrote from her own personal experience. However, that does not mean that the speaker is necessarily the same as the poet. Information about the speaker, however, is scarce in the poem. We do not learn her sex, her social class, any of her personal history, or any other biographical details about her. The poem instead reveals the speaker through a depiction of her interests and beliefs. The speaker is a countercultural figure, someone who is willing to disagree with the primary social conventions of her era. She is also a self-contained person, someone "contented" primarily with her own company (54).