Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Mr. Gilbert Norrell is a short, plain man who hates the company of others and is so arrogant and pedantic that he cannot make friends. He is a member of the landed gentry and uses his wealth to build the only library of magical books in England. Power and control over others and over magic are his main motivations throughout the novel. Like Strange, he is driven by the quest to learn more about magic, but he is more interested in the theoretical aspects. He thinks practical magic isn’t respectable and will damage the mundane world if it is used and shared without restraint. Despite his focus on theoretical, respectable magic, he gains the support of the government by performing the wild magic that he so distrusts. He resurrects the wife of a government minister but has to ask a fairy for help to do it, and this consequential act of practical, experimental magic is the inciting incident that drives the plot of the novel forward.

Despite agreeing to take on Jonathan Strange as an apprentice, his inability to surrender control and be more generous to his pupil leads to a rupture in his relationship with Strange. Without Strange beside him, Norrell becomes more and more aggressive about maintaining control over magic, so much so that the mundane authorities who back him try to rein him in. His greatest fear comes true when Strange returns to England to plunder his library, but this meeting turns out to be a reconciliation that allows the two magicians to combine the best of practical and theoretical magic to save Arabella and restore magic to England.

Childermass is the assistant of Mr. Norrell. Although he is essential to Norrell’s work of building a library and later uncovering the truth behind the prophecy about the return of the Raven King, Childermass never gets the credit and respect he deserves from Norrell. Because Childermass is a servant and a member of the working-class, Norrell, who only respects the gentry and powerful people, refuses to follow the good advice Childermass gives him throughout the novel.

In physical appearance, Childermass has shaggy black hair like “a fall of black water; he had a strong, thin face with something twisted in it, like a tree root; and a long, thin nose; and, though his skin was very pale, something made it seem dark” (28). This description appears early in the book, and with its references to natural elements, makes it clear that Childermass is a servant who has something magical about him, despite Norrell’s insistence that magic is only for the gentry. Over the course of the novel, Childermass goes from accepting whatever Norrell tells him to do to thwarting Norrell’s aims and overtly performing magic. His important role in the events of the novel and his more clear-headed view of those events show that the class distinctions Norrell tries to maintain around the practice of magic are grounded in prejudice rather than reason.

Stephen Black is the child of an enslaved woman who died during the sea voyage that her enslavers, the Pole family, chartered to bring her and other enslaved people from Jamaica to England. Stephen is the butler to Walter Pole, the scion of the Pole family. He is grateful for the education and job he received from the Poles, and his central traits are loyalty and a love of order. Out of all the characters in the novel, he is one of the few who has a moral compass and uses it well despite his lack of status and power. At the start of the novel, he is a butler who, like Lady Pole, experiences the effects of an enchantment by an amoral fairy who resurrected Emma Pole (nee Wintertowne) after she died of tuberculosis. He is so observant that he is one of the first to realize that something magical has gone wrong with Lady Pole and the Pole home, but Walter Pole ignores his complaints.

Once Stephen Black begins living a life in both the magical and the mundane worlds, the fairy reveals that Stephen has a dual identity. Stephen, the fairy claims, is a lost prince who should be king of England and avenge himself on the Pole family for enslaving his mother. Unlike Strange and Norrell, Stephen wants nothing to do with magic, even if it grants him power and the favor of the fairy. The culmination of his struggle is his decision to accept all the magical power that England and the fairy offer him and use it to destroy the fairy. His character arc ends with him becoming the king of Faerie. His importance and power serve as a critique of the class system and racial politics of England, both of which lead other characters to underestimate his importance.

John Uskglass was a medieval magician-king who was kidnapped and enslaved by the fairies as a child. He is a transcendent figure who balanced human reason and fairy magic to create the English system of magic. In the alternative history of the novel long before the main story arc takes place, Uskglass brought an army out of Faerie and fought a war against England’s King Henry I, overthrowing the mundane order and establishing magic as an important part of what it means to be English. Uskglass has been gone for hundreds of years by the time of the events of the novel, so his identity is shrouded in mystery.

Because the Raven King is a mythical figure by the time the novel begins, different characters see him in different ways. Norrell sees Uskglass as anarchic and his magic as wild, especially since it allows even the most ordinary English people to exercise power through their connection to the natural world. Conversely, Strange sees the Raven King as a figure who embodies the best of Englishness, especially the will to explore and innovate. At the end of the novel, the Raven King briefly returns to England in the form of an enormous raven who perceives the two magicians calling him back to England to be insignificant specks. That ending underscores the gulf between powerful magical figures and the mundane world of humans.

This character is a fairy who rules Faerie and whose actions help destroy the boundary between the magical and mundane world. He first breaches that boundary when Gilbert Norrell asks for help in resurrecting Emma (Wintertowne) Pole. Like most fairies, his actions are mischievous and arrogant, and he sees humans as ignorant creatures who plague him with their requests. He exercises absolute control over England’s magic and uses that power to kidnap many characters. He serves as a foil to Stephen Black, who constantly considers the moral implications of his actions, and he is also a foil to Gilbert Norrell in that he rejects any constraint on his use of magic. The fairy dies when Stephen destroys him using the very powers that he bestowed upon the butler, leaving Stephen as the new king of Faerie. The fairy thus represents the anarchic, destructive potential of magic.

Vinculus is a London street magician whose defining characteristic is that he has the words of the book of Robert Findhelm inscribed upon his skin. The words appeared there at his birth several years after his father ate the book, which included a prophecy about the return of the Raven King to England. Vinculus is poor, but he manages to disrupt the boundaries of class through the knowledge he carries. Like the fairy, he is a deeply magical creature who shows the anarchic potential of magic. He dies once at the hands of the Lord of Lost-hope, but the Raven King resurrects him.

Walter Pole is an ambitious war secretary whose status and power are nearly destroyed by the debts that his father and grandfather accrued. His need to shore up his position through marriage is, however indirectly, a contributing factor to the restoration of English magic. Because he owes Norrell a favor in return for the resurrection of his rich fiancé, Pole publicly supports the use of magic to secure the military interests of England. His connection with Norrell and later Strange is a mutually beneficial one that allows him to consolidate his power.

Pole is a man in his forties who displays many of the prejudices and biases of his class. For example, he assumes that Emma Pole will listen to him with worshipful adoration after they marry, and he ignores both his butler and his wife when they exhibit signs that something magical has gone wrong in his household. Like Norrell, he believes that magic should only be the purview of upper-class gentlemen. He represents the essence of the mundane world’s prejudices.

At the start of the novel, Emma is a woman with a long-term illness (likely tuberculosis, a popular ailment given to characters in the English novel). She is also an intellectual who reads history, poetry, and biographies. Initially, it seems that her only importance lies in the wealth coveted by Walter Pole in his ambition to become a more powerful politician. However, she proves to be a much greater catalyst, as her death motivates Norrell to violate the boundary between the magical and mundane world and accelerates the plot of the novel. After her resurrection, she spends two weeks in control of her own life and enjoys all the privileges that come with being a member of the upper class. The subsequent conflation of her illness with “madness,” however, causes her to embody yet another stereotype associated with women who violate gender conventions.

She finally becomes a force for anarchy when she attempts to kill Norrell. Her encounter with the magical world changes her, for in Lost-hope, she is outspoken and fierce, traits she could not express as a gentlewoman. The various archetypes she embodies and her awareness of the role that gender plays in her life allow the story to explore and subvert the representation of English womanhood in the English novel.

John Segundus is a gentleman-magician whose question about the dwindling of English magic heralds the return of magic to England. Despite being a gentleman, he lives in genteel poverty. He is the only York magician who refuses to sign Norrell’s agreement never to perform magic after the miracle of York, an action that shows his integrity. He is a magician whose lack of wealth and lack of a community of magicians hamper him, making him a foil to both Strange and Norrell. Although a minor character, he plays an important role in freeing Lady Pole from her enchantment.

Judging by the etymology of his name, Lascelles is likely the descendant of the Normans who conquered England. Lascelles is a tall, highly intelligent man with a sharp, cutting wit: a gentleman who makes himself indispensable by becoming Norrell’s spokesperson. Lascelles alternately uses and abuses Drawlight, culminating in his killing of the man to secure information about Strange. He is an arrogant, Machiavellian figure who knows how to secure power, and his character devolves from merely pursuing political intrigue to enjoying the act of murder itself, and he ultimately exits caught in an enchantment that forces him to either kill intruders into the realm of Faerie or be killed.

Mr. Honeyfoot, whose name reflects his sweet nature, is a loyal and intellectually generous friend who supports Segundus in his quest to see the library at Hurtfew. He is an affable, bumbling figure who either ignores or doesn’t catch Mr. Norrell’s insults. Honeyfoot isn’t the best judge of character, and because he assumes that sharing knowledge is important, he encourages Jonathan Strange to seek out Mr. Norrell despite the man’s tendency to destroy or suppress anyone or anything who threatens his control over magic.

The beautiful daughter of a clergyman and the sister of another, Arabella is the wife of Jonathan Strange. Arabella is outspoken and charming: perfect traits for a woman who tries to manage her husband’s impulsiveness and tendency to incite conflict. She acts as a moderating influence on Jonathan Strange’s pursuit of wild magic, and her social skills help him to gain influence in the mundane world. Her disappearance is the inspiration for Strange’s reckless pursuit of the Raven King. When she returns from Faerie, she still loves her husband but refuses to enter the pillar of darkness with him, showing that she values herself beyond the context of marriage.

Drawlight is a social climber whose name represents his attempt to gain reflected glory by attaching himself to more powerful men, especially Mr. Norrell. He is a dandy with a handsome face and a nose for shameful secrets, a skill that he uses as leverage to gain money and status from powerful people. Drawlight is a snob and social climber whose comeuppance arrives when he impersonates Strange to sell correspondence courses on magic. He becomes a pariah and is murdered by Lascelles, who kills him to gain greater influence with Norrell.

The historic Duke of Wellington was Arthur Wellesley, an Anglo-Irish soldier who gained political power by winning the war against Napoleon Bonaparte in the decisive Battle of Waterloo, which Clarke incorporates in the book. The version of Wellington that appears in the novel is a pragmatic, demanding man who only relies on Jonathan Strange once he realizes that magic has a practical use in war. Wellington is also politically astute, and his arc in the novel shows him in the company of powerful political figures. The historical Wellington served as prime minister of England, and the one in the novel seems well on his way to doing the same by the end of the story.

The historic George III was the last king from the Hanover dynasty and oversaw the loss of the American colonies during the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. The historic George III had a physical or psychological illness that prevented him from ruling during the early 1800s, and in her novel, Clarke incorporates this fact and ascribes these mundane illnesses to the influence of magic. Kingship is important in Clarke’s novel, for English kings help mediate the balance between the magical and mundane worlds. An important part of the context for the Lord of Lost-hope’s power is thus the incapacity of George III.