Gabrielle is one of the three protagonists of The Violin Maker’s Secret. She has “black cherry” colored hair, pale skin, and icy blue eyes. Gabrielle is a gifted violinist and the daughter of violin appraiser Gregory Wildling. Gabrielle’s mother, a notable professional violinist, died when Gabrielle was young, and she worked tirelessly throughout her childhood to improve her musical ability. Although Gregory supported the development of her musical career, he failed to protect her from her abuser, Max, and Gregory’s lack of support is one of the factors that led to Gabrielle leaving her career behind and feeling unable to confront and process her trauma. Her own fierce desire to protect herself led to her inability to play, protecting herself from Max but cutting off her burgeoning musical career in the process.

Although Gabrielle cuts herself off from music, her self-worth remains entangled with her ability to play the violin. She wonders if other people feel the same emotional devastation, thinking, “Did they too have a dividing line in their lives, clearly marking the before and after? The person they were before and the person they’d had to become to survive the aftermath? And if you couldn’t love this new version, how could you expect anyone else to?” (29). Gabrielle’s thought patterns illustrate how her inability to play violin coincides with her inability to practice self-love. At the beginning of the novel, she views herself as disparate from her former self; her former self had talent and a bright future, while her current self struggles to keep the legacy of her family intact.

Gabrielle struggles to forgive herself, viewing her trauma with shame. The pain of her past feels so heavy that Gabrielle had “grown suspicious of her emotions and blocked their entry accordingly […]. But the emotion she treated with the greatest suspicion of all was happiness […] it came cloaked in promise and light. Like love, it tricked your brain chemicals into believing some fantasy story” (147). Gabrielle imagines that happiness is merely a trick, something to set her up for further disappointment, which illustrates the important connection between Gabrielle’s character arc and the theme of Longing for Change After Disappointment. Gabrielle’s pain and the disappointment in her father and friends for failing to help lead her to isolate herself from others and repress her emotions.

Gabrielle’s isolation leads to her deep uncertainty when she begins having feelings for Devlin. She thinks, “Only someone as deep in denial about her feelings as she was could outwardly pretend that these thoughts weren’t there […]. She was seemingly doomed to overthink things until they expired while waiting for her to figure out what to do” (286). Gabrielle can externally pretend she doesn’t have feelings for Devlin, but she internally knows the truth. Knowing, however, doesn’t easily grant her the strength to act on those feelings. Much of Gabrielle’s character growth revolves around her developing the courage to let others, especially Devlin, into her life. Devlin supports Gabrielle in her journey toward self-acceptance and self-forgiveness, which culminates in her impassioned performance of “Bellezza Nascosta,” a scene that intersects her return to music with the reclamation of her life. Gabrielle cultivates her self-love, forgiving herself, her father, and Roger for the trauma of her past. Gabrielle manages to move forward, reigniting her love for music and opening her heart to a romantic future with Devlin.

Walter is the third protagonist of The Violin Maker’s Secret. He is a retired history teacher with gray hair and blue eyes. Walter was a passionate educator who cared about his students, and after retirement, he feels lost. Walter’s character arc centers on his need for human connection and purpose in life. After he retires, he realizes he’s alone, and then he receives a terminal cancer diagnosis, something he doesn’t share with Devlin or Gabrielle. Walter has never fallen in love, and he wonders what a powerful romantic love would feel like; he thinks, “Imagine: loving someone so completely, so essentially, that your very existence depended upon their light” (16). As a part of his character arc, however, Walter is given the opportunity for love when he meets Trudy; their meeting only occurs because Walter has broken out of his old habits and patterns, spontaneously attending a salsa class.

Although he may be unfamiliar with romantic love, Walter is a caring, insightful man who acts as a mentor to both Devlin and Gabrielle. When Walter meets Gabrielle, he thinks, “If you took the time to observe people, they betrayed all of their best-kept secrets. The detached, frosty countenance she displayed at the shop hid a world of pain” (54). Walter can see beyond Gabrielle’s veneer of indifference to her inner turmoil, and he understands Gabrielle’s pain and desire to hide from her feelings, partly because of a memory of doing the same himself in his younger years. He regrets his fear of rejection, thinking that if he had another opportunity to be young, “he wouldn’t listen to that scared voice inside his head that had some kind of mortal dread of being embarrassed” (190). Walter, watching Gabrielle and Devlin struggle to actualize their romantic relationship, realizes that his loneliness is a product of his own fear. He was afraid of rejection, so he didn’t fully open himself up to those around him.

Walter’s connections to Gabrielle and Devlin help him realize that he’s capable of forging real, human relationships, priming him for a potential romantic future with Trudy. His journey toward meaning and connection helps him to realize the meaning of life: “It wasn’t about making a good name for yourself or earning a decent salary. It was about fun, silliness, touching other people’s lives in some way, and letting them touch yours. Letting yourself be blown about and shaped by experience” (241). Walter learns to let go of his insecurities about the type of life he should have and prioritizes living in the moment and making relationships with others, transforming him from a lonely retiree to a private investigator with a network of friends and a potential romantic partner.

Verity is the antagonist of The Violin Maker’s Secret. She is a middle-aged woman with silver hair who owns an antique store in Montreal, Canada, a store her abusive father once owned. Verity’s father treated her with malice and brutality throughout her childhood, and her one connection was with Gabrielle’s father, Gregory. When her father sells the violin to end the connection, Verity is motivated not only to avenge the slight but also to get the violin back. Verity’s desire for the violin stems from both its connection to Gregory and her need to gain power over her father.

Although Verity is the antagonist of the novel, she goes through a character transformation as well. She is distraught after the violin turns to dust in her hands, but when she returns to Canada, she realizes that she doesn’t need the physical violin anymore: “Yes, the pursuit of the violin had been the catalyst […]. But it was she, Verity, who had made this amazing life for herself. It wasn’t about finding someone to love her, it was about loving herself enough to create a better future” (388). Like Devlin, Gabrielle, and Walter, the violin guides Verity toward creating a better life. Though she doesn’t fulfill her dream of obtaining the violin, her new life is worth the effort she’s expended for the past 40 years. Verity isn’t redeemed for her criminal actions or violence, but the novel doesn’t completely condemn her, either. She’s a complicated character with complex motivations, and though she harms Gabrielle and terrorizes the trio of protagonists, her own past pain makes her a more nuanced antagonist.