Henry ('Hank') Chinaski

Henry Chinaski, the narrator and protagonist of the novel, is a fifty-year-old white male who is an alcoholic. He was born in 1920 in Andernach, Germany, although he does not speak any German. Henry gives his age at the beginning of the novel at fifty years old, indicating the time period considered by the text is the early 1970s. Henry gives his height as six feet and his weight as approximately two hundred and twenty-five pounds. He describes his face as deeply scarred, with an alcoholic's nose, slit eyes, a monkey mouth, and ugly. He is flabby, white, and unkempt with a protruding white belly. Henry has a six-year-old daughter who lives with her mother. Henry's involvement appears to be limited to the regular payment of child support. Henry was married at the age of thirty-five, and divorced two and one half years later and his ex-wife...