Aurelio Escovar is the protagonist of the story and the only named character. He is a dentist with no formal degree or certification. Gabriel García Márquez’s own father, Gabriel Elijio García, was a self-trained homeopathic pharmacist for a time. The fact that Aurelio lacks a degree underscores that he is a working-class, uneducated man who hasn’t had the privilege or opportunity for further study. His poverty is also apparent in his plain clothing—“a collarless striped shirt, closed at the neck with a golden stud, and pants held up by suspenders” (73)—and the fact that he is “skinny” and perhaps malnourished. Aurelio is a man of controlled habit: He wakes early each morning, opens his business early, keeps his instruments in a particular order, meticulously completes his tasks, and maintains a cool and composed demeanor when confronted with conflict.

In some ways, Aurelio is out of step with his society’s social order. He is described in the opening paragraph as having “a look that rarely corresponded to the situation” (73). His lack of an emotional response to the conflict with the Mayor also seems unusual, a mystery deepened by his later pronouncement, “Now you’ll pay for our twenty dead men” (75), which reveals that Aurelio has good reasons to feel viscerally angry with the Mayor.