Sixteen-year-old Carrie, the eponymous protagonist of the novel, lives with her Christian fundamentalist mother Margaret, who verbally and physically abuses her. Carrie grows up extremely sheltered due to her mother’s beliefs, to the point…
read analysis of Carietta “Carrie” White
Margaret White
Margaret White is Carrie’s mother. She raises Carrie by herself—her late husband, Ralph, died before Carrie’s birth. Margaret is deeply religious and has a particular contempt for female bodies and sexuality. When she…
read analysis of Margaret White
Sue Snell
Sue is Carrie’s classmate. She is in the locker room when Carrie gets her first period. Although she participates in taunting Carrie, she later feels deeply remorseful about this and questions her own complicity…
read analysis of Sue Snell
Tommy Ross
Tommy is Sue Snell’s boyfriend. He’s a popular jock, but he also has a good reputation, even among the school outcasts, for being intelligent and kind. When Sue asks him to take Carrie to…
read analysis of Tommy Ross
Billy Nolan
Billy is a local menace and Chris Hargensen’s boyfriend. Billy’s parents are divorced, and he reacts to his unhappy home life by behaving cruelly toward others, including Chris—the narration implies that he has forced…
read analysis of Billy Nolan
Get the entire Carrie LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
Chris, one of Carrie’s classmates, is Carrie’s most tenacious bully. She is the girlfriend of Billy Nolan, a delinquent who is often cruel to her. Although Chris, too, is a problem student at…
read analysis of Christine “Chris” Hargensen
Ralph White
Ralph, Carrie’s father, is the late husband of Margaret White. He was known in Chamberlain for being mean and intimidating, always carrying around a Bible and a revolver wherever he went. The narration…
read analysis of Ralph White
Rita Desjardin
Rita is a gym teacher at Ewen high school. She is young and in her first year of teaching. It is in the locker room after Miss Desjardin’s gym class that the other girls mock…
read analysis of Rita Desjardin
Henry Grayle
Henry Grayle is the principal of Ewen High School. He is decisive and assertive, even against parents such as John Hargensen, who threatens to sue the school after Rita Desjardin confronts John’s daughter Chris…
read analysis of Henry Grayle
Mr. Morton
Mr. Morton is the vice principal of Ewen High School. He helps Miss Desjardin in the immediate aftermath of the locker room incident by giving Carrie a dismissal slip to go home early. He means…
read analysis of Mr. Morton
Estelle Horan
Estelle Horan used to live next door to the Whites. She was in high school when Carrie was a toddler, and her mother often feuded with Margaret over Estelle wearing her swimsuit in her backyard…
read analysis of Estelle Horan
Frieda Jason
Frieda Jason is a student at Ewen High School. She attends prom with George Dawson, and the two are on the ballot for Prom King and Queen. Frieda is very friendly to Carrie on…
read analysis of Frieda Jason
George Dawson
George Dawson is a student at Ewen High School. He attends prom with Frieda Jason, and the two are on the ballot for Prom King and Queen. George is a good friend of Tommy…
read analysis of George Dawson
Norma Watson
Norma is one of the popular girls at Ewen High School. She is friends with Chris Hargensen and participated in harassing Carrie in the locker room. When the fire breaks out at the gym, Norma…
read analysis of Norma Watson
Thomas Quillan
Thomas Quillan is a resident of Chamberlain. He has a bad habit of getting angry when he’s drunk, so he often voluntarily locks himself up at the police station, which he does the night of…
read analysis of Thomas Quillan
Cora Simard
Cora Simard, a survivor of the prom night disaster, is the mother of Rhonda. Upon hearing about the fire at the prom, she and her friend Georgette go into town—just as is in the…
read analysis of Cora Simard
Minor Characters
Vic Mooney
Vic is the senior class president and announces the Prom King and Queen. When chaos breaks out at the gym, he is able to escape and survive, but he’s hysterical and traumatized from the carnage he’s witnessed.
Sheriff Otis Doyle
Sheriff Doyle is a sheriff at the Chamberlain Police Department. He is in a neighboring town when chaos breaks out in Chamberlain on prom night, and by the time he returns, the town is a disaster zone.
Rhonda Simard
Rhonda Simard is a student at Ewen High School and a victim of Carrie’s rampage on prom night. She is gruesomely burnt alive in front of her classmates.