41 pages • 1 hour read
Lucille FletcherThe Hitchhiker
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1941A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Character Analysis
Ronald Adams
Ronald Adams is the play’s protagonist and narrator. A “perfectly sane” 36-year-old (94), Adams encounters strange events on a drive from Brooklyn to California. Fletcher renders him somewhat generic, an everyman whose general relatability enhances the effectiveness of the story by helping listeners step into his shoes.
Adams begins the trip as an optimistic and self-assured man, brushing off his mother’s concerns about the dangers of the road. After seeing a strange hitchhiker on the Brooklyn Bridge, however, Adams’s feelings change. As the hitchhiker appears again and again, Adams goes from bemusement to panic, realizing that no one else can see the man with the rain-spattered clothing who seems to be following him from state to state. Despite his fear, he also develops a kind of dependence on the hitchhiker, unable to stop anticipating their next encounter.
Adams’s reality is shattered when he learns that he died on the first day of his road trip. As the play ends, Adams grapples with his loss of identity, descending into a state of confusion and panic. His previously solid sense of self is gone, and he now knows that he has been unwittingly dodging Death, in the form of the hitchhiker, for the past six days.
Adams’s inability to accept his death displays one of the most basic human instincts. Since the dawn of humanity, people have feared the great unknown that comes after life. Most of us seek to avoid death for as long as we can, trying to extend our time on Earth and avoid facing up to the ending we know to be inevitable. Fletcher uses Adams’s character to draw on this ancient and enduring fear, creating a deeply unsettling narrative.
The Hitchhiker
The hitchhiker is the play’s antagonist. His “drab” appearance elicits an initial sense of trust that is inverted as he continues to show up in seemingly impossible locations along Adams’s route. Adams is both terrified of the hitchhiker and inexorably drawn to him.
Fletcher portrays the hitchhiker as ambiguously supernatural and unsettling. He is an opaque character, as listeners have no insight into his internal world or his thoughts. The hitchhiker is never hostile to Adams. Instead, Fletcher creates suspicion about his character through small details like his “ghostly” voice and the fact that he knows personal information about Adams.
Listeners are primed to expect a traditional ghost story, and Adams’s observations about the hitchhiker materializing out of thin air and floating over the ground lead us to suspect that he is a ghost until Fletcher finally reveals that he is the sentient personification of Death come to claim Adams from the land of the living. His character parallels the well-known figure of the Grim Reaper in that he seems to be a sort of guardian or collector whose purpose is to escort Adams to the afterlife. Fletcher’s decision not to portray him as threatening or violent suggests that she views Death not as an evil force but as an inevitability that must be accepted.
Mrs. Adams
Mrs. Adams is Adams’s mother. She has a close and loving relationship with her son. She prophetically warns Adams not to pick up any hitchhikers as he leaves for his road trip. As the last person Adams interacts with before his accident, she represents his last true link to the world of the living. Mrs. Adams is devastated by her son’s untimely death and suffers a nervous breakdown as a result.
Girl (Female Hitchhiker)
The woman Adams picks up in Oklahoma initially intends to stay with him all the way to Amarillo, but her plans soon change. After Adams spots the hitchhiker and attempts to run him over, she fears for her life and demands he let her out of the car. Her inability to see the hitchhiker confirms that Adams is an unreliable narrator, inhabiting a different reality than the other characters. Interestingly, the girl can see Adams, even though he’s apparently dead.
