• Oba Yozo

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Oba Yozo is the young protagonist and narrator of the novel, who finds it hard to adapt to normal society and finds it almost impossible to communicate with other people and even be himself in front of anyone. His true self is hidden and the only thing the world sees is a mask. In the first notebook, he mentions how he has felt alienated from society from a young age and has “no understanding of what makes human beings tick.” He also invented “clowning,” which means he tries to act silly for people to laugh. His reasoning behind it was that as long as he makes people laugh, it will be fine. Oba seeks others' approval and will do anything for validation, as it makes him feel human. He has also been sexually abused by servants in his childhood. Sent to college in Tokyo, he neglects his studies, attends art classes, and meets a painter, Horiki Masao, who introduces him to tobacco, alcohol, and prostitutes. Yozo becomes involved with an unhappy bar hostess whose husband is in prison, and he attempts suicide with her but is unsuccessful. The incident estranges him from his family. After this, he runs away, living as a “kept man” with Shizuko, a widow who works for a publisher, and starts drawing cartoons for money. As his drinking worsens, he decides that she and her daughter were better off without him. He then meets and marries another lady, named Yoshiko, a tobacco shop worker. They enjoy happiness until Horiki reappears and leads him back to his bad habits. He develops a morphine addiction and is later sent to a mental institution. The story ends with him confined in a dilapidated rural house and being tended to by an ugly old woman. In the last years of the narrative, he repeatedly gives his age as twenty-seven, evidence of insanity. 

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• Flatfish:

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Flatfish is an old functionary of Yozo’s father, with whom Yozo was forced to live after attempting double suicide with his previous wife. His real name is Shibuya, and he is a single 40-year-old man. Flatfish seems to worry about Yozo, and, therefore, tells him to stay at his house at all times, since he fears he’s going to try, once again, to commit suicide. Oba becomes frustrated with his confined living conditions, so he runs away and never sees him away. 

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• Shizuko:

 

Shizuko is a twenty-eight-year-old widow with a five-year-old daughter named Shigeko. Yozo moves in with her, in Koenji, not long after his failed suicide attempt. She was able to find cartoon commissions for him, after seeing his doodles and drawings. However, he eventually leaves both of them, thinking that he will spoil their lives. He mentions he had been a fool to come between them and, if he stays any longer, he will completely ruin them.

 

• Tetsu:

 

​Tetsu is a lady that Yozo describes as the ugly, sixty-ish woman hired by his brother to look after him following his period of institutionalization. Yozo attests that she violated him several times “in a curious manner.”

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• Father:

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Yozo’s father frequently had business in Tokyo and maintained a townhouse there. Also, he was verbally abusive to Yozo and unsupportive of every single action. However, Yozo still sought his validation and was always trying to make him happy or satisfied, such as, when the father asked him what to bring him from Tokyo, he said a mask, even though he wanted a book, just because he knew his father wanted to buy him a mask. 

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• Takeichi:

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Takeichi was Yozo’s classmate and the first one who noticed his clowning. He was often described as the puniest boy in the class with a scrofulous face. He had no redeeming features and was scorned by all. He filled Yozo with fear as he did not want his clowning façade being breached by Takeichi's guessing. Therefore, Oba befriended him to keep him silent. It is Takeichi who encouraged Yozo in art, as it is recurrent later in the novel. Lastly, he ended up taking his own life. 

 

• Masao Horiki: 

 

Masao Horiki was born in downtown Tokyo and is a former art student from a private school. He introduces Yozo to alcohol and prostitutes. Being six years older than Yozo, he is always ready to undermine Oba's self-confidence. He commits one cruel act in the story, beckoning Yozo to see Yoshiko being sexually assaulted rather than rescuing her.

 

• Tsuneko:

 

Tsuneko is a well-known bar hostess from Hiroshima, working in the “Ginza.” Her husband is currently in prison, which is why she is feeling very lonely at the time she meets Yozo. He feels like making any silly joke would make her laugh, and this is also why he feels so comfortable around her. However, she thought of her as a one-night lover. He offers to support him financially, but he respectfully declines. Finally, she suggests a double suicide, where she dies and he is saved.  

 

• Yoshiko:

 

Yoshiko is younger than Yozo by a decade. She begins as an innocent seventeen-year-old who urges Yozo not to drink. They both decide to get married to each other but Yoshiko is unfaithful to him by sleeping with Mr Aoki, who works in the art division of the daily morning newspaper, and told Yozo he would become a great artist after seeing his latest work and suggesting putting it up in an art gallery. 

 

• The old pharmacist:

 

The old pharmacist is a widow of sixty who has been half-paralyzed since childhood. She cared for her sick father-in-law and her only son, who is a medical student and, suffering from tuberculosis. When Yozo is dealing with his addiction to morphine, she gives him the drugs.

 

• The bar madam:

 

The bar madam, who helps Yozo after he leaves Shizuko. He stays with her for a year, and she helps him and Yoshiko rent an apartment near the Sumida River when they wed. At the end of the novel, she blames his fate on his father and drink, terming him “a good boy, an angel.”