I Am the Cheese Characters

Adam Farmer is a teenage guy. That's all we can really say for sure about him. Can we really even call our protagonist Adam Farmer when that's not his real name? Shmoop thinks so. As readers, the p...

For starters, we're not really sure who Brint is. At the beginning of the book we think he's a psychiatrist, but by the end we understand that he works for the government. But is he a good guy or a...

Adam's dad, David Farmer (formerly Anthony Delmonte) is described by Adam for the most part as a lighthearted guy. He sings in a funny voice (sometimes while dancing [5.6]) and does impressions of...

"A: Funny about my mother. All my life, from the time I was just a little kid, I thought of her as a sad person. I mean, the way some people are tall or fat or skinny. My father always seemed the s...

Mr. Grey, also known as Thompson and #2222, is a government worker who has been assigned to the Farmer family in the Witness Re-Establishment Program.We are first introduced to him as "[t]he gray m...

Amy Hertz. Beautiful, voluptuous Amy Hertz. The thing about Amy is that she doesn't really seem to have any deep-seated issues or concerns. We don't really get to know her on a profound level. What...

When Adam calls what he thinks is Amy Hertz's number, the man who picks up is a curious character. It seems like all the other people Adam encounters on his bike ride show some sense of spooky fami...

These three "wise guys" (14.7) give Adam a hard time on one of his first stops along his bike ride. They're pretty much the textbook definition of bullies. Throughout Chapter 14 they throw things a...

We don't meet Dr. Dupont until the very end of the story, when he is waiting for Adam at the entrance to the hospital. This makes him the one character to appear in both Adam's imagined bike journe...

We don't know much about Junior Varney, except that he steals Adam's bike and is about the same age as Adam. What he represents is the fears Adam has to overcome. Throughout the book, Adam is worri...

Arnold and Edna are the couple that helps Adam out of the ditch he's been pushed into by the bullies. They drive him for a while on his journey. Arnold is described as being "kind and concerned," w...

What's important about Mr. Harvester (who actually doesn't have a name when Adam meets him on his bike ride)? Well, for starters, he's the first person Adam meets along his journey. Also, he's desc...

The German Shepherd that runs after Adam on his bike is, it turns out, a dog that lives at the hospital with the patients. In the earlier chapters of the book, he's described as a guard dog. Adam t...

Luke is the counterman at the restaurant where Adam stops for a bite to eat along his journey. We don't know much about him except that he's small and thin and always on the phone. Once again, like...

Arthur is the man who tells Adam that Junior Varney stole his bike. When Adam passes him while looking for his bike, Arthur is described as a large, sweaty man with a thick Southern accent who call...

Back in the day you used to have to connect to an operator to call anyone. Instead of dialing the number yourself (or just pressing the person's name on your iPhone), you called the operator, who t...

The woman in the car at the service station in Chapter 29 is described very briefly, but specifically: "Her hair is gray but she has Orphan Annie eyes, wide, no lashes; she looks as if she has neve...

Adam very briefly meets a policeman when he asks to stash his bike at the police station while he gets something to eat. The weird thing about this guy is that he doesn't look up at Adam when he re...

Mr. Grey's men are following the Farmer family when they leave town for the weekend. Because of what happens shortly after they're spotted (the car crash) we can't be sure if they're good or bad. (...

All we know about Martha is that she's Adam's aunt and she's a cloistered nun. The fact that she's a nun explains why Adam's mom was able to speak with her: she was separated enough from society th...