Borges is a fictionalized version of the author, acting as the story's narrator and protagonist. He is an aspiring writer and author of a work called *The Sharper's Cards* who maintains an annual, somewhat melancholy tradition of visiting the home of his deceased love interest, Beatriz Viterbo, on her birthday. Possessing a cynical and critical view of the world, he harbors quiet disdain for the local literary establishment and views his acquaintance Carlos Argentino Daneri with barely concealed contempt.

Carlos is the first cousin of Beatriz Viterbo and an ambitious poet, described physically as a pink, substantial, gray-haired man. He works in a subordinate position at a library on the southern outskirts of the city. Convinced of his own literary genius, he labors over a massive epic poem titled *The Earth*, which he frequently reads aloud to Borges while offering self-aggrandizing commentary on his own brilliance.

Beatriz is a deceased woman who serves as the driving force for the narrator's actions. Known primarily through her surviving photographs, she appears vivacious and independent, often pictured posing at jockey clubs or carnivals, or photographed shortly after her divorce. Though she passes away before the main events of the narrative take place, her lingering memory heavily dictates the movements and obsessions of the men she leaves behind.