The Alienist

John Schuyler Moore is the book’s narrator and sidekick to Dr. Kreizler. The entire story unfolds through Moore’s eyes, so his presence and perspective dominate the narrative. Moore assists Kreizler in the murder investigation. This protagonist-sidekick dynamic allows Moore to serve as a proxy for nearly all educated readers of The Alienist, for while Moore appears intelligent, thoughtful, and generally competent, he also knows little about the practical applications of Kreizler’s ideas. As the investigation unfolds, therefore, both Moore and readers learn about individual psychological context.

Moore’s professional expertise also plays a crucial role in the narrative. Roosevelt asks Moore to join the investigation because Moore works as a police reporter for the New York Times. This gives Moore the requisite combination of knowledge, perspective, and access. As a police reporter, Moore understands (and regularly comments on) the depth of corruption that plagues the city’s police department. He is sympathetic to Roosevelt’s reform efforts on that front. Moore also knows how to investigate and has the contacts necessary to do so. He laments the fact that crimes against immigrants, even immigrant children, are seldom investigated, let alone solved. He accompanies Kreizler to the opera, but he is also familiar with the tenement district. In short, while Moore lacks Kreizler’s psychological expertise, the police reporter is both skilled and well informed in every other relevant aspect of the case.

Moore’s character arc highlights the book’s psychological theme in two important ways. First, Moore mentions strained relations with his family. While he does not dwell at length on his own personal history, he does indicate that he broke with most of his family members over their refusal to acknowledge his late younger brother’s struggles with depression and addiction. Viewed through the lens of Kreizler’s theory of individual context, this personal history explains Moore’s concern for the plight of the children in general, as well as his particular interest in the welfare of young Joseph, the sexually exploited child who reminds Moore of his younger brother. Second, Moore at times struggles to accept Kreizler’s assertion that the killing and mutilation of children is, in fact, the product of a sane mind—again dramatizing the tension between Free Will and Determinism. In this way, too, Moore stands in for the reader, voicing the reader’s reluctance to accept that the killer might not be wholly to blame for his heinous actions. For the most part, Moore comes to embrace Kreizler’s ideas and even uses them to help construct the killer’s profile in Kreizler’s absence. Moore does not accept these ideas without reservation, however, as evidenced by his angry outburst upon witnessing the killer John Beecham mentally revert to the frightened child Japheth Dury, as if Beecham “had no right to exhibit any pitiable human qualities in light of all he’d done” (466).

As a police reporter who understands both police corruption and the plight of the city’s children, and also as a reluctant convert to Kreizler’s ideas, Moore personifies and advances all the book’s major themes.

Sara Howard works as secretary to Police Commissioner Roosevelt, who appoints her his personal liaison to the Kreizler investigation. In this capacity, Sara functions as an unofficial member of an unofficial investigation. At no point in the story, however, does her role appear limited by any formal restraints. She acts as an equal member of a five-person investigative team. Furthermore, her psychological insights prove crucial in the construction of the killer’s profile, particularly as it pertains to his childhood.

Notwithstanding her equal membership and crucial contributions to the investigation, Sara remains a young woman who aspires to be the city’s first female police detective at a time when prevailing attitudes about gender and work made such aspirations all but unimaginable. Even Roosevelt’s decision to hire Sara as a secretary caused controversy. Moore describes Sara as tall and athletic—years earlier, in a drunken moment, he even proposed to her in a casual way—but this does not make her a romantic interest of Moore’s or anyone’s, for Sara is singularly focused on her professional goals. Sara carries herself with confidence, and she backs up her assertiveness with a .45-caliber revolver. At all times, however, she remains cognizant of the fact that her male colleagues, even the ones who mean well, will not treat her the way she wants to be treated. She does not dwell on her professional aspirations while hunting for a serial killer, but she also knows that the investigation’s eventual end will bring uncertainty for her personally.

While Sara shows some initial reluctance to accept an argument for the killer’s sanity, at least in the moments after she first sees a child-victim’s mutilated corpse, she soon embraces Kreizler’s theories and uses them to build a profile of a woman who probably had a negative influence on the killer’s childhood. She does this so well that her work even exposes Kreizler’s stubborn adherence to his own ideas and his inability to escape his own psychological context. When Kreizler removes himself from the investigation following Mary’s death, Sara convinces Moore that the remaining team members can finish the investigation based on what Kreizler taught them. Sara also deduces the probable site of Beecham’s final killing based on what she learns of Kreizler’s movements that evening. In short, to a greater extent than Moore or any other character, Sara emerges as Kreizler’s protege.

The real-life New York City police commissioner—and in five years president of the United States—Theodore Roosevelt plays by far the most crucial supporting role in the novel. Roosevelt’s approval and support make the secret murder investigation possible in the first place. While the five members of the investigative team each have existing personal or professional connections to one or two other members, they are all connected to one another only through the investigation and through Roosevelt. Furthermore, Roosevelt’s legendary insistence on bold action, coupled with his devotion to reform, helps infuse the story with both energy and moral clarity.

For each of the book’s major themes, Roosevelt serves as a subtle counterpoint. In the psychological debate between Free Will and Determinism, a young Roosevelt embraced free will with the enthusiasm of a rugged individualist who lives “the strenuous life” (4). As police commissioner 20 years later, however, Roosevelt shows “a heart and a mind expansive enough” to consider Kreizler’s theories and entrust his alienist friend with the investigation (486). Roosevelt also plays the role of reformer in a police department riddled with corruption. Finally, Roosevelt’s children, who are loved and protected inside the Roosevelt home, stand as an example of what children’s lives should be like, thus casting the mistreatment of every other child in the novel in an even harsher light.

Lucius is the shorter of the two Isaacson brothers, young detectives recently brought into the police department by Roosevelt. The Isaacsons hail from a Jewish family, which highlights Roosevelt’s eagerness to purge the department’s corrupt old order and hire new people with fresh ideas regardless of irrelevant physical or ethnic qualities. Roosevelt assigns the Isaacsons to Kreizler’s investigation in large part because they are new to the force and thus unconnected with the old corruption. Kreizler accepts them because they impress him with their deep knowledge of forensic science and modern investigative methods.

The Isaacsons’ quirks provide early comic relief as they quibble with one another in their nervous yet eager way. Their contributions to the investigation, however, prove invaluable. Lucius appears at his best and most expert while examining the remains of the murdered children. He also adds to the team’s analysis of the killer’s profile by shifting the conversation toward the obvious confidence Beecham displays while moving along the city’s rooftops.

The taller of the two Isaacson brothers, Marcus at first appears to defer to Lucius and take his brother’s nervous chastisements in stride. Marcus, however, soon establishes himself as a formidable scientific mind, an equal partner in the Isaacson pairing. Marcus, for instance, pulls a bloody fingerprint from the remains of one of the children. When matched to prints at other sites, this brand-new method and technology allows the team to confirm that they are looking for a serial killer. Marcus also analyzes the killer’s handwriting, another new technique that has not yet gained wide acceptance.

Marcus appears at his best, however, while conducting field work. At Castle Garden, where Ali ibn-Ghazi’s mutilated body is discovered, Lucius focuses on the child’s mutilated remains while Marcus studies the surrounding area for clues as to how the killer gained access to the inaccessible heights of a stone fortress. This leads to the insight that the killer has extensive mountaineering experience.

On balance, the Isaacson brothers play crucial roles in the investigation while also personifying Roosevelt’s ongoing effort to rid the police department of corruption and fashion it into a modern force.

Japheth Dury is the childhood identity of the serial killer who calls himself John Beecham. Throughout Parts 1 and 2, the killer looms as an unnamed presence, revealing himself only through his savage deeds. Early in Part 3, however, Moore comes across a report of an 1880 murder in which the victims were a husband and wife by the name of Dury. When Kreizler matches the birthplace of Corporal John Beecham to the location of the Dury murders, and as other details begin to align, it becomes clear that the teenaged Japheth Dury killed his parents, disappeared, and then reinvented himself as John Beecham.

Beecham’s life appears to support Kreizler’s theory of individual psychological context, and the debate between Free Will and Determinism takes on a moral dimension as the members of Kreizler’s team argue about the degree to which Beecham is to blame for his crimes. The investigators learn, for instance, that as a young boy Japheth was raped by a local farmhand named George Beecham. They also learn that Japheth’s mother treated him coldly, which confirms Sara’s suspicions that a woman played a destructive role in the killer’s childhood. Japheth also had a severe facial tic that went away only while he was hunting and trapping in the nearby mountains, where he became a skilled climber. These childhood traumas explain Japheth’s fixation on his father’s Civil War–era photographs of corpses mutilated by Sioux Indians, for instance, as well as his choice of young male victims who remind him of his own shame. When a gun-wielding Connor interrupts Beecham’s final act of intended murder and mutilation, Beecham collapses into a quivering heap, which suggests that the frightened boy Japheth still lives inside him.

Mary Palmer is Kreizler’s maid and domestic servant. Early in the novel, Sara observes that Mary is in love with Kreizler. In Part 3, Kreizler reveals to Moore that the romantic affections are mutual. Mary dies while trying to defend young Stevie from Connor and his thugs, who have invaded Kreizler’s home in search of the alienist. After losing Mary, a grieving Kreizler temporarily abandons the investigation.

Like all Kreizler’s servants, Mary personifies the Exploitation of Children in the story. As a teenaged girl, Mary brutally murdered her father, who sexually abused her. Kreizler rescued her from the city’s justice system after testifying to the effect of her childhood trauma. Mary also suffers from a severe physical condition that makes speaking difficult. For the most part, therefore, she communicates in single words or gestures. Her silence makes her a source of mystery and an object of psychological curiosity to Moore. Above all, it represents the pain endured by the city’s suffering children, who have no voice.

Cyrus Montrose is one of Kreizler’s domestic servants. He drives the doctor’s carriage, serves as a de facto bodyguard, and entertains the household with piano music. Moore describes Cyrus’s “broad, black features,” which hints at Cyrus’s particular childhood trauma. During the city’s 1863 draft riots, immigrant mobs showed their disdain for emancipation through indiscriminate acts of violence against Black people. As a boy, Cyrus witnessed his parents being attacked and torn apart by one such mob. As he did with Mary, Kreizler cited this childhood trauma as a factor in Cyrus’s adult act of murder and agreed to look after Cyrus by taking him on as a domestic servant.

At key moments, Cyrus plays a supporting role in Kreizler’s unofficial investigation. Cyrus drives Sara and Moore to the Santorellis’ flat and then helps them escape Connor’s thugs. He also takes part in the unsuccessful surveillance operation that gives the team its first contact with the killer and lands Cyrus in the hospital. Most of all, however, Cyrus illustrates the lingering effects of childhood trauma.

Eleven-year-old Stevie Taggert is the third of Kreizler’s domestic servants to play a significant supporting role in the novel. The 1896 story begins, in fact, with Stevie banging on the front door of Moore’s grandmother’s house and then driving Moore to the site of the Santorelli murder. Stevie also rescues Moore from Paresis Hall, withstands a beating from Connor’s thugs on the night of Mary’s death, and joins Cyrus as an opera-house decoy in Kreizler’s plan to track down Beecham.

Stevie represents both the Exploitation of Children and the problem of Police Brutality and Corruption. Moore describes Stevie as “the bane of fifteen precincts” who already in his brief time on earth had seen the worst New York City could offer (9). Like Mary and Cyrus, Stevie had been rescued by Kreizler and was now devoted to the alienist. When Stevie and Moore arrive at the Santorelli murder scene, a boorish police sergeant recognizes and threatens the boy, softening his tone toward Stevie only when he realizes that Moore works as a police reporter for the New York Times.

Patrick Connor is a former detective sergeant who embodies Police Brutality and Corruption. Connor is present at the scene of the Santorelli murder. At police headquarters the following day, Kreizler scolds Connor for spreading false rumors based on uninformed speculation about the killer’s probable identity. This serves as an illustration of the police department’s typical approach, which is to ignore crimes against immigrants, even children.

After being cashiered by the reform-minded Roosevelt, Connor resurfaces as an agent of Thomas Byrnes, the corrupt former police inspector whom Roosevelt effectively replaced. Connor employs brutal tactics on multiple occasions, first when abducting Kreizler and Moore at gunpoint and driving them to J. P. Morgan’s home, and then by beating Stevie and accidentally killing Mary by knocking her down the steps. Even when he interrupts Beecham’s intended murder and mutilation of another boy victim, Connor appears as a symbol of brutality. Looking with contempt at the now quivering murderer, Connor taunts Beecham as a “poor excuse for a man” (461). Notwithstanding Beecham’s savage crimes, Connor appears in this moment as the tormentor, a brutal reminder of the cold and contemptuous mother who belittled young Japheth Dury and helped forge his violent character.