Jonah Hancock

Jonah Hancock, the male protagonist of the novel, is a merchant’s son of a merchant’s son. Gowar describes him: “a portly gentleman of forty-five, dressed in worsted and fustian and linen, honest familiar textures to match his threadbare scalp, the silverish fuzz of his jowls, the scuffed and stained skin of his fingertips” (3). Mr. Hancock trains his rational merchant’s mind on everything he looks at, but does not see the value of the first mermaid when the captain of his ship brings it to him. Over time, he learns to appreciate the value of the mermaid and the strange, and falls in love with Angelica Neal, a famous courtesan.

This passage from Book 1, Chapter 13 shows Mr. Hancock’s dominant approach to life throughout the novel: “Whenever Mr. Hancock feels overpowered by his situation, he turns his mercantile eye upon it. And so, on entering...