The Rainbow characters

Appears from the start

A farmer at the Marsh in rural Nottinghamshire, rooted in the Brangwen family's land yet drawn toward lives and experiences beyond it. He is already an established adult when he becomes fascinated by Lydia Lensky and begins the marriage that opens the novel's multigenerational story.

Also known as Mrs Lensky

Appears from the start

A Polish widow living in England with her young daughter, Anna. Foreign to the Brangwens' farming world and marked by losses that Tom only partly understands, she attracts him through her reserve, independence, and difference from the people he has always known.

First appears in chapter 2

Lydia's daughter from her first marriage, taken into Tom Brangwen's household while still a child. She grows up at the Marsh between her mother's Polish past and the vigorous, enclosed life of the Brangwens.

First appears in chapter 4

A younger Brangwen relative who comes to work near the Marsh. Intense, skilled with his hands, and strongly responsive to religious art and ritual, he falls in love with Anna even though their temperaments and beliefs repeatedly put them at odds.

First appears in chapter 8

The eldest daughter of Anna and Will Brangwen. As a child she is alert to the emotional contest within her family and increasingly curious about the larger social, intellectual, and spiritual world beyond the home.

First appears in chapter 10

One of Ursula's younger sisters and her closest companion within the crowded Brangwen household. She shares Ursula's imaginative intensity while developing a more artistic and self-contained manner of her own.

First appears in chapter 10

A young officer of Polish ancestry whom Ursula meets through family connections. His military identity and attachment to conventional public life attract her at first while also exposing a deep difference between his ambitions and hers.

First appears in chapter 12

A teacher with whom Ursula develops an intense friendship during her widening life outside the family. Cultivated, confident, and emotionally compelling, Winifred introduces Ursula to a relationship that feels unlike the futures conventionally offered to young women around them.

Also known as Uncle Tom

First appears in chapter 12

Will Brangwen's brother, an energetic manager identified with the industrial world of the local collieries. His authority, practicality, and comfort with machinery contrast with Ursula's unease about a life organized around production and social power.

First appears in chapter 13

The forceful head of the elementary school where Ursula takes her first teaching post. He represents an institution governed by discipline, hierarchy, and results, leaving the inexperienced Ursula to learn how little sympathy the system extends to either teachers or pupils.

First appears in chapter 13

A friend Ursula makes as her education and working life carry her beyond the Brangwen household. Maggie's companionship gives Ursula a practical connection to a broader social world at a time when she is testing possible adult futures.