The Power of the Dog characters

Appears from the start

The commanding elder Burbank brother, co-owner of a prosperous Montana cattle ranch in the 1920s. Brilliant, physically capable, and proud of mastering every ranch skill, he rejects comfort and refinement while using ridicule to enforce his idea of toughness among the men around him.

Appears from the start

Phil's younger brother and partner on the family ranch. Heavy, quiet, and methodical, George lacks Phil's verbal quickness but is steady in his work and more responsive to loneliness and vulnerability in other people.

First appears in chapter 2

A widow who runs the Red Mill eating house and raises her adolescent son, Peter. Sensitive to humiliation and anxious about maintaining respectability, she is moved by George's unshowy kindness after Phil and the ranch hands disrupt her dining room.

First appears in chapter 2

Rose's slender, self-contained teenage son, who makes paper flowers for the tables and hopes to study medicine. His precise manner and indifference to conventional masculine display attract mockery, but he observes people and physical evidence with unusual detachment.

First appears in chapter 2

Rose's late husband and Peter's father, a physician whose death left Rose to support their son and manage the Red Mill. His absence remains part of the small family's vulnerability when the Burbanks enter their lives.

Also known as The Old Gent

Appears from the start

Phil and George's father, a wealthy former rancher now living away from the property with his wife. His success established the brothers' position, though management of the working ranch has passed to his sons.

Also known as The Old Lady

Appears from the start

Phil and George's mother, who lives with her husband away from the ranch. She belongs to the cultivated social world that Phil outwardly dismisses and George continues to respect.

Appears from the start

A dead cattleman whom Phil reveres as the mentor who taught him the skills and codes of ranch life. Phil invokes his memory as the standard against which later men are measured.