Content Warning: The source material and this guide discuss domestic violence.

Castle Cranshaw is the narrator of Ghost and the story’s protagonist. He is a dynamic and round character who grows throughout the novel. He starts as an angry teenager with poor impulse control because he is coping with trauma. Castle is profoundly affected by a night when his father fired a pistol at him and his mother, for which he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. His trauma manifests in fights at school and an inability to back down from conflict. He is also insecure about Glass Manor, the poor neighborhood in which he lives, and feels that he is rarely able to make his own first impressions. Whether people judge his clothes, his haircut, or his neighborhood, he feels like people think they know things about him that aren’t true.

Despite his bravado, Castle is compassionate from the beginning. He stands up for anyone who is bullied, including his own bully, Brandon. He is protective of his mother and sleeps on a pallet near her bedroom so he can help her instantly if anything happens. These traits outline his hidden depths, which are revealed through his first-person narration but concealed from those around him.