Jordan is the novel’s second protagonist and narrator, alongside his adoptive mother, the Dog-Woman. He is a dynamic character whose life is defined by a continuous quest for knowledge, identity, and a reality that lies beyond the tangible world. As a foundling fished from the Thames, he lacks a fixed origin, which fuels his lifelong journey of exploration. Unlike the Dog-Woman, who is a being of immense physical presence, Jordan is a figure of the mind, driven by imagination and introspection. His journeys are both literal, as he sails the world with John Tradescant, and metaphysical, as he explores the nature of time, self, and reality, though his narration questions whether any of the events he recounts are physically real. His fascination with maps and voyages symbolizes his search for a self that is multiple, existing across different planes of being.

His quest is catalyzed by the sight of a banana, the first in England, which opens his imagination to worlds beyond his immediate experience. This moment marks the beginning of his true “sailing,” a departure from the linear, predictable world into one of limitless possibility. His search for the elusive dancer, Fortunata, becomes the central thread of his journey. She represents an ideal, an aesthetic and spiritual counterpart he must find to feel complete. This search, as he comes to realize, is for “the dancing part of myself” (37), showing his quest as an internal one. Jordan’s narrative explicitly engages with the theme of Time as a Simultaneous Reality, as he contemplates alternate lives and believes that “all times can be inhabited, all places visited” (76). His perspective challenges the reader to consider that history and personal experience are overlapping, accessible dimensions.

Jordan’s relationship with the Dog-Woman is one of deep, albeit unspoken, love and an essential need for separation. He recognizes her immense power and protection but understands that he must leave her formidable shadow to discover his own identity. While she is grounded in the material world, Jordan is drawn to lightness, dreams, and the abstract. He is a philosopher and a romantic, constantly trying to reconcile the “ideal outer life and the inner imaginative life” (103). At the novel’s conclusion, his encounter with his doppelgänger in the fog-filled, burning London signifies a moment of integration, a collision of his multiple selves that suggests he is, perhaps, finally becoming whole.

Fortunata is the 12th and youngest of the dancing princesses, and she serves as the elusive object of Jordan’s quest. She is more of an ideal than a fully developed character, embodying complete freedom, self-possession, and a mastery of a reality that transcends physical laws. Unlike her sisters, who escape their unhappy marriages only to regroup in a shared house, Fortunata breaks free, pursuing a life dedicated to her art. When Jordan finally finds her, she is the head of a dancing school on a remote island, teaching her pupils to become “points of light” (65) and defy gravity. She represents the ultimate realization of the imaginative life that Jordan seeks. Her physical lightness is representative of her transcendence beyond material and social reality.

As a figure of wisdom, she offers Jordan important insights but remains unattainable. She laughs at the notion that his identity is defined by the “rock from whence ye are hewn,” instead pointing to “stumps” of wings in his shoulder blades, suggesting his true nature is one of flight and freedom, unbound by gravity and history. Her own stories are fluid and contradictory; she tells Jordan a straightforward tale of running from her wedding, yet her sisters recall a magical escape on a tightrope. This narrative inconsistency reinforces the idea that personal truth is a matter of creation. She has achieved a state of enlightened solitude, content within her own world and demonstrating that the greatest journeys are internal. She will not join Jordan, symbolizing that the ultimate goal of his quest is to cultivate his ideal self on his own.

John Tradescant the Younger is a historical figure who functions as Jordan’s mentor and a bridge between the mundane world and the world of wonders. As royal gardener, he is a man of science and exploration, yet he is also deeply sensitive and melancholic, feeling that his responsibilities on land have separated him from his true self, which is “at sea” (17). He provides Jordan with the practical means to begin his voyages, teaching him about botany and navigation and taking him on expeditions. He shows a more conventional and grounded approach to discovery than Jordan. For Tradescant, voyages are linear endeavors that can be completed and documented, contrasting with Jordan’s boundless, metaphysical explorations. In addition, Jordan sees Tradescant as a true “hero,” which is later echoed by Nicolas Jordan, each pursuing an ideal of exploration and conquest.

Tradescant’s historical reality, including his service to the king, his famous museum of rarities called “The Ark,” and his grief at the king’s execution, anchors the more fantastical elements of the narrative in a specific time and place. He is a kind and gentle man who recognizes Jordan’s potential and nurtures his curiosity, acting as a benevolent father figure. However, his adherence to the known world and its maps ultimately highlights the radical nature of Jordan’s own inward journey, which seeks to chart territories that have no physical coordinates.

Appearing late in the novel, Nicolas Jordan and the unnamed female scientist are the 20th-century counterparts to Jordan and the Dog-Woman. Their presence shatters the narrative’s historical setting and reinforces the novel’s argument that all time exists simultaneously. Nicolas is a modern naval cadet who feels disconnected from a world where heroism and discovery seem obsolete; like his 17th-century namesake, he builds model ships and dreams of the stars. His story culminates in the decision to help the chemist burn down a factory to stop the pollution of a river.

The scientist is an ecologist fighting corporate polluters, a modern incarnation of the Dog-Woman’s righteous fury. While she lacks the Dog-Woman’s physical size, she possesses the same spirit in the form of a psychological “alter ego who was huge and powerful” (127). Her fight against the faceless, systemic evil of industrial pollution is a contemporary parallel to the Dog-Woman’s fight against individual “scoundrels” and Puritans. These characters are presented as coexistent realities, suggesting that the archetypal struggles and quests of the 17th-century characters are timeless and continue in different forms. Winterson’s text even implies that these characters may all be collapsed into one another, with Nicolas imagining that he is a woman, Jordan spending a period of time as a woman, and the chemist imagining herself as the Dog-Woman. The opening of the novel, which implies that the text is a series of imagined, possible truths, indicates that these “reincarnations” may be the source of the historical characters, rather than alternate versions of them.