Caroline Helstone is the main protagonist of the novel. She is the daughter of James and Agnes Helstone: Her mother left the family when Caroline was young, and her father died when she was eight. Now 18, she lives with her uncle, the Reverend Matthew Helstone, rector of a parish in Briarfield. Although the Helstones are respected in town and come from a distinguished family of the “gentleman” class, Reverend Helstone is not wealthy and Caroline is financially dependent upon him as an unmarried woman without any inheritance of her own. Described by friends and the narrator as beautiful, kind, and likable, Caroline nevertheless struggles greatly with her place as a woman in society. This mostly expresses itself as a crisis of confidence.

Brontë creates Caroline’s character to explore life for women of this class at this time. In many ways, Caroline is representative of the typical situation of a woman in her class: She has no money but very little option to earn a living; she is reliant on her uncle who both resents her as a burden and forbids her independence; she knows that marriage is her only likely escape but is sensible of the dangers of marrying a man without love, especially when to marry is to be subject to that man’s control.