Fiddler on the Roof

Golde is Tevye’s wife and the mother of his five daughters. Despite Tevye’s claim to authority over the family, Golde asserts her will in what is ultimately a partner-based marriage. When Tevye makes the decision to allow Tzeitel to marry Motel, Tevye manipulates Golde into agreeing to the marriage. Golde is angry that no one consulted her on Perchik and Hodel’s engagement, despite the fact that tradition dictates that Tevye should have the power to make the decision. Additionally, Golde tricks Tevye into meeting with Lazar Wolf by withholding the knowledge that Lazar wants to marry Tzeitel. Tevye may have the official right to giving the final word in family decisions, but Golde largely runs the family. She dictates their day-to-day lives. However, although Golde is beholden to tradition and religious law, she stops short when those ideologies threaten to harm her family. She disagrees with Tevye’s shunning of Chava, and while she mostly obeys his decision, she still speaks to Chava before the family separates at the end. Golde is a strong woman who raises her daughters to become strong women as well. But when they follow their own paths away from home, Golde yearns to have the family back together. Tevye and Golde had an arranged marriage, one centered on mutual benefits rather than love. When Tevye asks Golde if she loves him, she admits that she does, showing a warmth and affection that is not always obvious.

Tevye and Golde’s oldest daughter, Tzeitel is the first to push her father to break tradition. Although her marriage is the least controversial of the three oldest daughters, she blazes the path for Hodel and Chava to push for increasingly non-traditional matches. Tzeitel falls in love with Motel, a poor tailor who she has known since childhood. She is similar to her mother in that she is strong and assertive—more so than her meek husband. At the beginning of the play, Tzeitel is bound to tradition, anxious that Yente will find her a match before Motel can approach Tevye since Tzeitel feels obligated to marry whoever Tevye chooses once Tevye gives his consent. She also feels compelled to follow tradition and wait for Motel to approach Tevye rather than doing so herself. But when faced with an unhappy life married to Lazar Wolf, Tzeitel speaks out and pleads with her father to break off the engagement. But begging for Tevye to change his mind suggests that Tzeitel will ultimately abide by his decision. After Tzeitel is married, she and Motel are poor but happy. They have a son, and aside from Tzeitel’s non-traditional path to marriage, they also seem to have a fairly traditional family. However, Tzeitel refuses to take part in Tevye’s shunning of her sister and embraces Chava at the end.

Hodel, Tevye and Golde’s second-oldest daughter, is intelligent, witty, and outspoken. Like her mother, Hodel speaks her mind even if what she is thinking is impolite. She falls in love with Perchik, a poor scholar from Kiev, and leaves everything she knows and loves to be with him and fight by his side against Russian oppression. Perchik notices that Hodel is fiery and smart and tells her that she would be wasted in a limited, domestic life. Although Perchik brings her into his activism, his observations about her are not an awakening. She already has confidence and knows that she is bright, not hesitating to challenge Perchik’s unconventional interpretation of the story of Laban and Jacob. While Tzeitel asks for her father’s permission to have agency in her marriage, Hodel decides to marry Perchik and wants her father’s blessing, not his permission. Like Tzeitel, Hodel is ultimately happy for following the life path she chooses, even though it means living far away in Siberia. Hodel opts for the life of a revolutionary because she places value on social change above personal comfort and adherence to tradition.

Chava is Tevye and Golde’s middle daughter. She loves to read, and although Golde laments that reading will never win her a good husband, it does catch Fyedka’s attention. At the beginning of the play, Chava seems obedient and quiet. She looks forward to the time when Yente will find her a man to marry and hopes to catch the interest of the Rabbi’s son Mendel. But her interest in Mendel is based on his status. When she meets Fyedka, he appeals to her intellect, offering her a book. Chava is shy and does not stand up to the Russians that harass her but responds to Fyedka because he sees her as more than a future domestic. The book Fyedka gives her is by a Jewish author, but Chava asserts that she feels no need to limit herself to Jewish writers, foreshadowing her choice to marry outside the Jewish faith. Of the three daughters, Chava rejects tradition the most, sacrificing her relationship with her family in order to assert agency in her life. She not only forgoes Jewish wedding traditions but is married by a minister. However, while Chava gives up her faith, she does not fully assimilate with the Russians. Chava and Fyedka choose to leave for Poland rather than stay among people who are persecuting Jews.

The second-youngest daughter of the main family, Shprintze is still a child and impressionable. She listens to Perchik’s lessons and obeys her parents. Shprintze has not reached an age where she has begun to want things that are outside of tradition or her parents’ wishes. But while Yente attempts to set up a match for her, Golde is reluctant to make such a decision while Shprintze and Bielke are so young.

Bielke is the youngest daughter. Like her sister Shprintze, Bielke represents a question mark in terms of the future of the family and the role that tradition will play in her future life decisions. Bielke and Shprintze don’t seem to understand what is happening at the end of the play and are excited to have new experiences and travel to America.

Ironically, Yente, the village matchmaker, was once in a miserable arranged marriage. She and her late husband were unable to have children, and Yente accepts matchmaking as the best way to perpetuate Jewish lineage. She is part of an old-world tradition in which marriage is a transaction for the benefit of the fathers of women and the survival of the Jewish community. Yente is offended by Tzeitel’s wedding because it marks a trend that makes her profession and calling obsolete. At the end, Yente plans to realize a life-long dream to go to Jerusalem where she expects her services to be valued. As one might expect of someone whose life is devoted to matching young people with spouses, Yente is a meddler and a gossip.

A poor tailor, Motel falls in love with Tzeitel, who has been his friend since they were young children. Motel is modest and timid, terrified to ask Tevye for permission to marry Tzeitel and only does so when Tzeitel pushes him. He marvels at Tevye’s consent, comparing it to miracles in the Torah in which the underdog impossibly defeats someone or something in power as in David and Goliath or Moses and the pharaoh of Egypt. As Tevye notices, by facing his fears and anxieties and asking to marry Tzeitel, Motel begins to act like an adult instead of a child. Motel has a son with Tzeitel and finally manages to buy the fancy sewing machine he has been wanting. When the villagers have to leave Anatevka, Motel and Tzeitel must live on their own, separate from the family, until Motel can earn enough money to pay for their trip to the United States.

Tevye meets Perchik, a poor Ukrainian student, at the beginning of the play. Perchik is hungry, so Tevye offers him food in exchange for teaching his daughters and invites Perchik to join his family for Sabbath dinner. Perchik is fighting for the revolutionaries who will eventually overthrow Tsar Nicholas II. He believes in socialism and the redistribution of wealth, as evidenced by his interpretation of the story of Jacob and Laban as a lesson to never trust an employer. When Perchik wants to marry Hodel, he tells Tevye that he wants his blessing but does not require his permission. Perchik returns to Kiev with the intention of sending for Hodel so that she can join him and they can be married. But he is arrested and sent to serve his sentence in Siberia. While the play never explicitly states why he is arrested, it is connected to his actions as a revolutionary. Hodel insists that he did nothing wrong, comparing him to figures in Jewish history who have obeyed God but disobeyed man’s laws. According to Tevye, Hodel writes that she is happy married to Perchik and supporting him in Siberia.

The village butcher, Lazar Wolf is wealthy and well-respected. However, Tevye does not like him. Lazar expresses interest in marrying Tzeitel, although he is not only much older than her but also older than Tevye. He does not meet Tevye’s hope that his daughters will marry educated men, but Tevye relents when Lazar promises to take care of Tzeitel. Lazar’s late wife, Fruma-Sarah, was, according to Golde, a miserable woman. Lazar tries to show grace and forgiveness at the wedding with a generous gift, but quickly becomes furious at Tevye for failing to uphold their arrangement. He and Yente leave the wedding angrily. At the end, Lazar plans to go to Chicago to live with his late wife’s brother even though he hates him. When Lazar and Tevye say goodbye, they do so warmly as if the broken match is no longer significant.

Mordcha is the innkeeper and presides over the wedding party. He is disappointed when Tzeitel marries Motel instead of Lazar since Lazar is rich and promises an expensive wedding. When anger breaks out during the wedding, Mordcha attempts to maintain the peace and keep the party going.

Perhaps the most respected member of the village, the Rabbi is the spiritual leader of Anatevka. He is old and wise, but speaks little and often gives roundabout, non-committal responses to questions posed about religious law and customs. As with Tevye’s questions to God, the Rabbi does not provide easy answers and instructions.

Mendel is the Rabbi’s son and caretaker. His father may not give definitive answers to questions of faith, but Mendel is more rigid. He calls Perchik “a radical” (18) for arguing in favor of educating women. Mendel also calls Tevye “a radical” (62) when he discovers that Tzeitel chose her own husband. Mendel criticizes Perchik and Hodel for dancing, calling it “a sin” (63) until his father clarifies that dancing is “not exactly forbidden” (64). Mendel knows the Jewish holy texts very well, correcting Tevye as he humorously misquotes them.

Avram is the village bookseller. He reads the news and is the first to tell Tevye and the other men about the mass persecution of Jewish people across Russia. Avram also participates in gossiping about Tevye’s scandalous bending of tradition.

The village beggar, Nachum, is introduced in the Prologue of the first act. Although he does not have a part in the story beyond the ensemble, Tevye describes Nachum as an expected role in the community and the wealthy give him money and take care of him.

Grandma Tzeitel is Golde’s grandmother and obviously the inspiration for Tzeitel’s name. This is particularly fitting since Tevye inserts her into his fake dream in which she prophesies that Tzeitel is meant to marry Motel and not Lazar.

Fruma-Sarah was Lazar Wolf’s first wife, although she has been dead for years. Golde describes her as “a bitter woman, may she rest in peace” (38). When trying to convince Golde that Tzeitel should marry Motel, Tevye claims that she appeared in his dream, shrieking like a harpy and threatening to murder Tzeitel if Tzeitel marries her husband. The invented dream version of Fruma-Sarah is ghoulish and angry, designed to terrify Golde.

A Russian police officer, the Constable has been friendly with Tevye for years. Although they coexist peacefully, they are not friends as they are divided by culture and power structures. The Constable, who notably does not have a name, tells Tevye that he likes him because Tevye “is a decent, honest person, even though [he] is a Jewish dog” (33). Although the Constable seems to offer kindness by warning Tevye of the persecution to come, he shows that he has no trouble hurting Tevye and his family while following orders. He apologizes while leading the attack on the wedding, but he clearly believes that what he is doing is necessary. At the end, the Constable is the one who delivers the order for the Jews to leave the town.

A Russian and a Christian, Fyedka befriends Chava because he notices that she loves to read. When his fellow Russians harass Chava and try to stop her from passing, Fyedka stops them but then defends their actions as harmless. Tevye tells Chava that he wishes they would stay away from each other, but Chava falls in love with him. Although Fyedka is present when the Russians ruin Tzeitel’s wedding, he and Chava decide in the end to leave the country so as not to remain complicit in the persecution of the Jews.

Shaindel is Motel’s mother. She is proud of her son and accepts his unconventional path to marriage.