The Signature of All Things: Analysis of Major Characters

Author: Elizabeth Gilbert

First published: 2013

Genre: Novel

Locale: Philadelphia; Tahiti; Amsterdam

Plot: Historical fiction

Time: 1760 through the late 1870s

Mr. Whittaker, Henry's father. As orchard man for the Gardens at Kew in London, Mr. Whittaker earned the nicknamed the “Apple Magus” after he saved the king's favorite apple tree. He is the father of six rough and violent sons, one of whom, Henry, takes a special interest in his father's trade.

Henry Whittaker, a self-educated, world-renowned botanist. As a young man, Henry is very tall and thin, with ginger hair, broad shoulders, and weatherworn, pale skin. He is audacious, stealing and selling plant cuttings from his father's employer, Sir Joseph Banks, who—ironically—admires the young man's audacity. Banks sends him on a world expedition with Captain James Cook. Henry returns, considering himself the equal of the wealthy and powerful Banks, who laughs him off. Henry marries Beatrix van Devender, and the two sail to America where they start their own farm and import-export enterprise. They have great success and grow quite wealthy. Henry is cantankerous in his later years, giving little regard to the feelings of others. He rarely expresses any affection for the people in his life, staying remote and inaccessible—an island unto himself.

Beatrix Whittaker, Henry Whittaker's wife. Having been born and raised by a well-known family of the Dutch custodians of the Hortus Botanical Gardens in Amsterdam, Beatrix is perfectly suited to be a wife, according to Henry Whittaker. What's more, Beatrix is a no-nonsense, sometimes severe, Dutch woman. However, Beatrix's family does not approve of the match, so she essentially disowns them. Her greatest wish, upon giving birth to a healthy daughter, is that her daughter be sensible and intelligent, and not an embarrassment to her family. She raises her two girls (Alma is her natural-born daughter and Prudence is an adopted daughter) with the demeanor of a strict schoolmarm. After a meal with guests, Beatrix meets with Prudence and Alma to criticize their behavior, rarely offering little praise.

Alma Whittaker, Henry and Beatrix Whittaker's daughter. This plain, unattractive girl grows to be a plain, very tall and broad-shouldered woman, with little femininity about her character—a depiction reinforced by her father, who essentially tells her beauty isn't everything. Alma inherits her father's passion for botany, becoming a scholar in her own right. Disappointed by her prospects, Alma has no romantic relationships with men until she meets Ambrose Pike, an artist who is devoted to the study of orchids. They are inseparable and eventually marry. However, Alma is sorely disappointed when she learns Ambrose wants a chaste marriage. Grief-stricken and feeling like a fool, Alma has her father send Ambrose to the Whittaker vanilla farm in Tahiti, where Ambrose succumbs to an infection. As Ambrose's wife, Alma receives his last, mysterious drawings, and follows his footsteps to Tahiti to learn about his last days. Alma is courageous both during her journey and upon arrival in Tahiti, eventually meeting one of Ambrose's last friends, who shares Alma's passion for the spirituality that Ambrose embodied.

Prudence Whittaker, Henry and Beatrix Whittaker's adopted daughter. However wooden and plainspoken Prudence may be, she is an undeniable beauty. Her mother had been a beautiful prostitute who was murdered by her own husband—Prudence's father—before he killed himself. The Whittakers immediately adopt the girl and set about educating her, though she never develops her sister's passion for learning. She rarely engages in conversation with the family's many guests, with one notable exception when she completely demoralizes a prejudiced dinner guest. She makes an extraordinary sacrifice for her sister (unbeknown to Alma), giving up the fiancée she deeply loves, hoping he will ask Alma to marry him, after Alma confesses her feelings toward the man. She marries her former tutor and takes up his abolitionist fervor, and remaining estranged from her father, who disowns her.

Retta Snow, a neighbor to the Whittakers. A vapid, flighty but delightful young woman, she entrances the Whittaker household with her sense of play, wonder, and surprising nonsequiturs. She offers flights of fanciful thinking that are entirely new to the Whittaker household. Though she and the Whittaker girls are in their late teens, she becomes the first friend for Alma and Prudence. She becomes engaged and marries the man who, unknown to all, both Whittaker sisters love. Unsuccessful in her attempt to have children, Retta gradually begins to lose her mind and is sent to a sanitarium, to the grief of all who love her.

George Hawkes, Henry's friend and a botanical publisher. An overly large and clumsy, unfashionable and unattractive man, George frequently engages with Alma over matters of botany. He is a printer and publishes many of her papers in Botanica Americana. George asks for Prudence's hand in marriage—a proposal Prudence consistently refuses because she knows Alma's feelings for George. George marries Retta Snow instead, who gradually goes insane, leaving him to live out his remaining years of life, alone.

Hanneke de Groot, childhood friend and housekeeper for Beatrix. A rather strict woman herself, Hanneke does provide an occasional sense of nourishment and care for the two Whittaker children. As the Whittaker girls age, Hanneke is more a beloved aunt than housekeeper. She is full of common sense and can always be counted on to provide the warmth and guidance the Whitaker girls are often starved for.

Ambrose Pike, Alma's husband. An idealist and spiritualist whose lifework comprises exquisite drawings of orchids, Ambrose enters Alma's life when George discovers Ambrose's work and suggests publishing a book of his drawings. Ambrose and Alma have an immediate connection as both share a passion and expertise for plant life, which both feel reflects a divine imprint that humanity needs to decipher. Ambrose moves into White Acre and the two become inseparable, working side by side. Ambrose shares his spiritual history and his greatest longing for purity and communion, which has bordered on madness, and he suggests that he and Alma experiment with spiritual intimacy. After a profound encounter, they wed, but they discover too late that they each have very different visions for their marriage. Ambrose wants a chaste marriage, something that Alma is horrified to discover on their wedding night. At Alma's request, Henry sends Ambrose to Tahiti to oversee the pollination of their vanilla orchard. Ambrose succumbs to an infection and dies.

Arthur Dixon, tutor for Alma and Prudence Whittaker. A rather stolid young man, Arthur Dixon tutors the Whittaker sisters. Later, he marries Prudence and they have many children. He is a staunch, radical abolitionist, living in complete poverty in order to draw attention to the horrible living conditions among freed slaves. They live within the African American community, donating any accumulation of wealth to the Philadelphia Abolitionist Society.

Sir Joseph Banks, a plant collector committed to creating a national garden for England. Mr. Banks bankrolls Captain Cook's first expedition to the South Pacific in order to gather rare plant specimens from around the world, which he hoards away from other botanists. He admires the audacity he sees in his arborist's son, Henry, who steals and sells specimens from Banks' stock. He hires the young man to travel abroad with Cook in his stead. However, when young Henry returns expecting to be welcomed into the Royal Society of Fellows, Banks laughs and sends him on his way, which becomes Henry's primary motivation for success—to prove Banks is a fool.

Professor James K. Peck, a professor at the College of New Jersey at Princeton. Professor Peck is a dinner guest at the Whittakers, expounding on his scientific theories about race. Though Peck's ideas reflect the thinking of his time, Prudence, in an extremely rare moment of loquaciousness, astutely challenges the veracity of his racist logic.

Dick Yancy, Henry Whittaker's foreman and supervisor. Dick Yancy is a man of few words who uses silence to intimidate. A tall, severe man, Yancy is best described as “the iron-handed enforcer” for Henry Whittaker's international trading concerns. He is bald-headed with “gelid eyes” and arouses fear in Alma whenever she is near him. Yancy is the one to inform Alma about Ambrose Pike's death, handing over Pike's last possessions, suggesting that Alma burn them.

Reverend Francis Wells, a minister in Tahiti. Upon first impression, the 77-year-old Reverend Wells looks like a gray-headed, white-bearded elf. His stature is short and wiry, with a body like that of a child. He has blue eyes, hollow cheeks, and his face is deeply sun- and wind-worn. He is a strange man and a liberal minister whose ideas certainly do not conform to the London Missionary Society's governing body. He is easygoing, living moment-to-moment, accepting whatever situation or condition comes his way. He has seen much tragedy in his life, yet remains cheerful. He accepts Tahiti as his home and its inhabitants as his children. He is described as inscrutable yet open. Wells is a kind and gentle enigma. He has a wife and daughter who live in England, but he knows he will never see them again.

Mrs. Edith Wells, Reverend Wells' wife. The educated daughter of a Methodist minister, Edith Wells was the driving force in Reverend Wells's missionary vision for Tahiti. Life was very hard and it took over twenty years to convert anyone to Christianity. She bore three daughters who died in infancy, but her fourth daughter, Christina, survived. Edith disagreed with her husband's theology, which she considered too liberal; he baptized congregants whether they renounced their pagan gods or not. Once Christina became a young woman, Edith returned to England to make an English life for her.

Sister Manu, a local Tahitian woman. Always seen wearing a broad straw hat decorated with daily fresh flowers, Sister Manu is the unofficial village leader. (There is little in Tahitian society that would one describe as official.) She delivers the sermons at church. Sister Manu's life has been tragic in that she lost all of her children and extended family to disease. She has scarred her face using shark's teeth, and has cut off part of a finger as a sign of her grief.

Tomorrow Morning, a Tahitian man, the subject of Ambrose Pike's last drawings. The Tahitians revere this beautiful and charismatic man as a near demigod. He is tall and well sculpted, and Alma recognizes him immediately as the graceful and poised subject (the nude man) of Ambrose's last sketches before he died—the man for whom she has traveled the world to find and question. Converted to Christianity by Reverend Wells, (who considers him a son) Tomorrow Morning has become a very successful evangelist. Morning has a tragic past, having lost his entire extended family to illness. He had an intimate relationship with Ambrose, whom he considered to be a divine emissary of God. He takes Alma to an extremely rare moss cave that Ambrose had suggested she would love to see. Together, they mourn the loss of Ambrose for themselves and for the world.

Dees van Devender, Alma's uncle. Though Dees and Alma had never met before, Dees immediately recognizes Henry Whittaker in the face of his daughter, Alma. As a Dutchman, Dees is very plainspoken and direct, like his sister Beatrix, offering no words of condolence when Alma describes the deaths of her mother, father, and husband. Regardless of his brusque manner, Alma finds her uncle Dees in tears as he reads her treatise, descrying that Alma has inherited her mother's mind.

Russell Wallace, a scientist in evolution theory. Tall and lanky, walking half stooped as if he has spent too much time with his microscope, Russell Wallace is a kind, unassuming man with whom Alma feels an immediate affinity. They share an important connection in their life's work as they each have come to conclusions similar to those in Darwin's evolutionary theory. After following his career for years, Alma calls Mr. Wallace to speak at the Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam. Interestingly, though his conclusions about evolution predated Darwin, he is not bitter that Darwin's theory was the first to print. Wallace is generous in acknowledging that Darwin wrote a much better, more beautiful discourse with his theory than Wallace could have imagined. Wallace's work was published in 1876 with the title The Geographical Distribution of Animals. Both he and Alma feel that they have taken part in an extraordinary, perhaps divinely inspired, era in human understanding.