Greenwood

Willow Greenwood is the secondary protagonist of Greenwood. Although she is portrayed as a static character in her earliest chronological appearance, her narrative provides her with more agency, making a crucial decision that will affect her son, Liam, and her granddaughter, Jake.

Willow is believed to be the daughter of industrial tycoon, R.J. Holt. Her mother, Euphemia Baxter, wishes to keep her, however, and she escapes into the woods to ensure that Holt does not get her. Willow passes from the care of Euphemia to Everett before eventually ending up with Harris Greenwood, who is publicly identified as her father.

As Willow grows older, she becomes characterized by her rebellious nature. She not only clashes with her father’s industrial ambitions but also actively opposes them by taking an interest in environmental preservation. This commitment is cemented in college, and Willow estranges herself from Harris while building her network as an environmentalist. Willow’s commitment to environmentalism is marked by her willfulness. She believes that protest is not enough and begins resorting to direct action, which leads to her incarceration at one point in her life. Her resentment of her father is also complicated by her quietly privileged lifestyle. She holds on to markers of her wealth like her Chanel perfume, revealing that her relationship with her father’s legacy is more nuanced than she admits.

Willow’s journey is defined by her decision to donate her wealth to environmental organizations. When Willow learns that she has inherited Harris’s wealth, she is faced with the possibility that she could live a comfortable life in the forest with her young son, Liam. However, she is inspired by her encounter with Harris’s former lover, Liam Feeney, to live according to her values. Embracing her wealth would mean that she is abandoning the world for a forest of her own. She instead recognizes Humanity’s Interdependent Relationship with the Environment and chooses to live in honor of that relationship. This eventually puts a strain on her relationship with Liam as he grows older while also indirectly causing Jake to work for Holtcorp at the Greenwood Arboreal Cathedral.

Harris Greenwood plays a complex role in Everett’s narrative, supporting him at one point and antagonizing him at another. Because of this complex relationship, Harris is not a true antagonist, though his support is less pronounced than any of Everett’s other allies, such as Temple Van Horne. Chosen by the town to receive an education, Harris’s arc represents the theme of Fate’s Influence on Nature Versus Nurture.

Harris is characterized by his sense of competition. At an early age, he fights with Everett over which of them their guardian, Mrs. Craig, likes most. Though Everett never openly attempts to compete with Harris, Harris is always suspicious that Everett is trying to take an advantage over him. This is evidenced by their reunion in Part 6, in which Harris suspects that Everett only took his place in the First World War to prove that he was better than Harris. As a result of this competitiveness, Harris is also characterized by his sense of self-reliance. He resents Everett for suggesting that he needed his brother’s help after falling blind before his deployment in the war. To prove this, he points to the success of his vast lumber empire.

Harris’s self-reliance is later revealed to be one of his central character flaws. His belief that all men must look out for themselves contributes to his decision to do business with the Japanese war effort in the years leading up to the Second World War. Though others point out the moral implications of this deal, Harris dismisses them, assured that all challenges are intended to undermine his success. Harris’s self-reliance also causes him to betray his brother at the end of Part 6 because he believes that giving up Everett to Lomax will stop the latter from blackmailing Harris over his relationship with his romantic interest, Liam Feeney. This decision causes Liam to leave him, but not before Liam retrieves the baby Willow from the Greenwood Island supply box. Harris redeems himself by honoring the promise to look after Willow in Everett’s place, though he never acknowledges this as a sign of his love for Everett in the events of the novel. Instead, Feeney is the one who reveals this love to Willow when she declares her resentment over Harris’s legacy.

Liam Greenwood is a tertiary protagonist in Greenwood. His journey represents Fate’s Influence of Nature Versus Nurture. When faced with imminent death, Liam reflects upon his past to decide whether he can die a good man despite his failure to resolve all the issues in his life.

Liam’s personality is heavily influenced by his relationship with his mother, Willow. Living a life on the road, Liam yearns for permanence and regularity, a need that is briefly satisfied when he lives with Everett and Temple on their farm during Willow’s incarceration. Liam is also characterized by a refusal to confront issues directly. He resents his mother but does not communicate this to her, destroying her dreamcatcher gift and sabotaging her van at different points in the novel. In his adulthood, these behavioral patterns manifest when Liam meets Meena Bhattacharya. He yearns for her to remain with him in New York but can’t reconcile this with her personal desire to live for her own sake. When she declines his gift of a replica Stradivarius viola, he spends the night destroying his own work.

His refusal to reconcile with Meena prompts him to ignore her messages informing him of the birth of their daughter, Jacinda. After Liam’s spine is shattered in an accident, he resolves to do whatever he can to “make things right in the end” (20). He acknowledges Jacinda’s existence by bequeathing everything he owns to her, completing his character arc while also supporting the theme of The True Value of Family Legacies.