The Peddler

The peddler is the protagonist and the only character to undergo real change. A poor, homeless vagabond who sells home-made wire rattraps and survives by begging and petty theft, he is at first bitter, lonely and cynical, hardened by a life in which the world has offered him nothing but cold and rejection. His gloomy philosophy — that the world is a great rattrap baiting and trapping everyone — is both his private joke and his defence against despair. He is capable of meanness: he repays the old crofter's hospitality with theft. Yet he is not without wit or a certain wry self-awareness, and beneath his hardened exterior a buried decency survives. Under the influence of Edla's trust and gentleness, this better self awakens. In the end he rises above his own cynicism, returns the stolen money, and signs himself " …