Violeta

José Antonio Del Valle is Violeta’s oldest brother. He is the only one of her siblings to remain by her side after her father’s financial ruin and eventual death. After their father’s death, José Antonio assumes all responsibilities for Violeta’s family—he oversees their safe resettlement in Santa Clara and moves on to find work in Sacramento so he can provide for them financially.

Unlike Arsenio, who was a bold and risky businessman, José Antonio is prudent and sensible. Even when he worked with his father, José Antonio continually advised Arsenio against taking risks that would land the older man in ruin. José Antonio displays a steadiness of character that translates into both his business and personal lives. The former is seen in how, after his family is forced to move, he nevertheless finds a way to support and take care of them. He eventually founds Rustic Homes, which ends up being a financial success and allows him to financially take care of his family for the rest of his life.

José Antonio shows the same steadiness, which manifests as loyalty, in his relationships. The first time he stands up to Arsenio is to plead Josephine’s cause, whom he is in love with. He remains steadfast in his love for Josephine throughout his life, despite her multiple rejections of his proposals. Eventually, when the two marry upon Teresa’s death, the years he spends with Josephine are the happiest of José Antonio’s life. José Antonio is equally loyal to his sister. He takes care of her as the “head” of the family in her childhood and stands by her through the various difficult moments in her life, from her separation from Fabian to the death of her daughter.

A gentle soul, José Antonio treats the women in his life with consideration and respect and is not tied up in social and gender norms. When the family needs to relocate, he unhesitatingly approaches Josephine for help in solving the matter. When Violeta joins the business, he encourages her, and willingly gives her fair share of commissions. Even when Violeta begins an affair with Julián, José Antonio’s thought is for her well-being over what society would say. Because of this, José Antonio holds Violeta’s complete trust, and her financial independence is owed partly to him, as he helps register her accounts and manage her money. José Antonio serves as Violeta’s biggest source of support, playing multiple roles of brother, business partner, protector, and earlier on even father figure, in her life.

Fabian Engler-Schmidt is Violeta’s first husband. He is the son of a German immigrant family who become wealthy dairy farmers and hoteliers in Violeta’s country. Fabian is smitten with Violeta from the first moment he sees her and pursues her relentlessly until she eventually agrees to marriage. However, they are not a compatible couple; Fabian’s love for her borders on obsessive dependence, to the point where he even agrees to raise Julián’s child as his but refuses an annulment.

Violeta does not return this sentiment, having married him simply because of social conventions. She imagines he will be a good husband and father before they are married, which makes up for the fact that she does not love him. However, even these expectations are left unmet, as she remains the main financial provider in the marriage while Fabian pursues his medical research as a veterinarian, and Fabian is also unable to father any children. Violeta is turned off by Fabian’s rigid beliefs rooted in Aryan “superiority”; these explain Fabian’s later associations with Colonia Esperanza. Eventually, Fabian grants Violeta an annulment for a sum and moves on with his life, going on to have another family.

Julián Bravo is the father of Violeta’s children. Her marriage to Fabian ends when she begins an affair with Julián, and he remains her lover for many years, even though they never marry. Handsome and charming as Julián is, he is equally cruel, selfish, misogynistic, and mercenary. He remains faithful to Violeta for as long as he is interested in her body; during her second pregnancy, he resumes his womanizing ways, carrying on multiple affairs with different women. Julián’s cruel and misogynistic nature comes through in his emotional and physical abuse of Violeta. He taunts her for her changing body upon having children and coerces her into having a tubectomy; he allows her no authority over the raising of her children; and he continually holds her financial independence against her as a failing.

A pilot by profession, Julián has a natural bravado and a taste for adventure. This, combined with his mercenary nature and his talent for stealth, sees him involved in many nefarious activities, from political intrigue to drug trafficking. He does not seem to ascribe to any one political ideology, willing to offer his services wherever he gets paid. This egocentricity sees him doing a number of morally reprehensible things, both in his personal and professional life—his relationship with Nieves, his attitude toward Juan Martin, his involvement with women like Zoraida and Anushka, and his work with the CIA and Colonia Esperanza are all examples of this. Eventually, Violeta comes to see the truth of what Julián is capable of and is able to exact some degree of revenge on him with Zoraida’s help.

Roy Cooper and Harald Fiske are both Violeta’s lovers at different points in the story, the latter going on to become her second husband. Roy is a private detective hired by Julián to keep tabs on Nieves; Roy eventually refuses to keep working for Julián when he sees how much Nieves longs to get away from her father. Roy genuinely looks out for Nieves’s well-being and is a support and companion to Violeta while she attempts to help her daughter. They eventually become lovers, and Violeta’s relationship with Roy opens her up to the possibility of a healthy romantic relationship with mutual respect and sexual desire.

Harald first enters Violeta’s life as an acquaintance—a Norwegian diplomat who enjoys birdwatching, he lands up at Santa Clara the year in which Juan Martin is forced into exile. Harald later reenters Violeta’s life when he relocates to her country for work, a year after Roy’s death. He becomes the last great love, at an unexpected time in her life. In contrast to her marriage to Fabian, Harald and Violeta’s relationship displays how marriage can truly be a relationship of love and companionship, rather than one of archaic conventions. Harald’s death is a significant event in Violeta’s life, and the first time she faces the question of her own mortality.

Josephine Taylor is Violeta’s governess who arrives from England as per Arsenio’s arrangements. She integrates herself into the Del Valle household almost immediately and becomes an integral part of the family. Besides arranging and accompanying Violeta and her family to Santa Clara to help them get settled following Arsenio’s death, Josephine and her lover, Teresa, visit the farm every year, staying in touch and involved with Violeta’s life. Josephine goes on to marry José Antonio after Teresa’s death.

Teresa Rivas is Josephine’s lover, a revolutionary young woman Josephine meets at a party. Teresa’s parents, Abel and Lucinda Rivas, are retired schoolteachers; Santa Clara is their farm, and they take the Del Valles in after Arsenio’s death. Teresa and her parents are extremely radical and progressive in their worldview. Throughout her life, Teresa works tirelessly for the feminist cause, braving multiple prison sentences. Abel and Lucinda, in turn, travel around the countryside attempting to bring education to the rural parts of the country, while also attempting to learn themselves from the Indigenous communities.

Josephine and the Rivases together are responsible for all of Violeta’s education, and they help lay down a strong foundation of values and open-mindedness that come to serve Violeta well later in her life.

Juan Martin and Nieves are Violeta’s children. Juan Martin is a soft, gentle-tempered child, bearing no resemblance to his father, Julián, which greatly angers the latter. Nieves, on the other hand, is intelligent, bold, and beautiful, with all the qualities Julián desired in his son. Owing to this, Julián and Juan Martin are estranged as adults, the gap between them further widened by their opposing political ideologies.

Juan Martin, deeply interested in politics, campaigns for the Socialist president who comes to power, and is forced to flee the country when he is ban-listed after the military coup. Juan Martin is the one who opens Violeta’s eyes to the possibility of a different perspective that questions everything she has been led to believe about the Socialists. However, after Juan Martin’s eventual relocation to Norway, he adapts to his host country to the point where he feels alien and foreign in his old life. Although there is still love between mother and son, Juan Martin rarely visits home, the revolutionary zeal from his youth almost entirely erased, and Violeta contents herself with loving him from a distance.

Nieves, unhealthily indulged by her father, initially grows up brash and spoiled, and engages in harmful and destructive behavior, particularly substance use, very early on. This causes a rift between mother and daughter. However, Nieves unconsciously realizes the problematic presence her father is in her life and does everything she can to escape it, although this sets her down a path of further self-destruction. Eventually, Violeta reconciles with Nieves in part when Nieves gets pregnant and reaches out to Roy Cooper for help. Nieves’s death is the biggest tragedy in Violeta’s life; she is only able to bear it owing to the new purpose she finds in raising Camilo well, and she honors Nieves’s memory later on by naming her foundation after Nieves.