Dr. Charles Ransom

Dr. Charles Ransom is the main character of the novel. At the start of the narrative, Ransom has recently lost his job as a doctor at the local Mount Royal hospital. He is also estranged from his wife Judith. These life changes inspire him to purchase a houseboat, “on one of those gratuitous impulses he often used to let a fresh dimension into his life” (23). Despite this hope, the houseboat has instead become “a repository of all the talismans of his life” (24). Ransom has indeed filled the boat’s cabin with mementoes of “his half-conscious memories of childhood and the past” (25). Filling the cabin with these artifacts and spending his time inside the space allows Ransom to remain attached to a life, world, and identity he is terrified of losing. Indeed, although almost all of the Mount Royal and Hamilton residents have fled the cities for...