Death and the Maiden characters

Appears from the start

A former political prisoner living with the lasting effects of abduction, rape, and torture under her country's recently ended dictatorship. She is married to Gerardo and distrusts the fragile new democracy's willingness to confront crimes committed against survivors like her.

Appears from the start

Paulina's husband, a lawyer asked to serve on a presidential commission investigating human-rights abuses that ended in death. He supports the democratic transition and believes in legal procedure, but the commission's narrow mandate strains his relationship with Paulina, whose abuse it cannot examine.

First appears in chapter 2

A physician who helps Gerardo after his car suffers a flat tire and later visits the couple's isolated house. Polite, educated, and apparently sympathetic to the new political order, he becomes the focus of Paulina's alarm when she hears his voice.