It

Ben Hanscom is an overweight, only child in Derry. He is bullied mercilessly by Henry Bowers and has a scar on his stomach from a knife wound Henry gave him. Ben is a book lover and spends a lot of time in the library researching Derry’s history. He also has as innate aptitude for architectural design and helps the Losers’ Club design a dam to make a pool in the Barrens. He is instantly infatuated with Beverley when he sees her in class and writes a haiku for her. This love will carry on into his adult life. After they defeat It, he takes Beverley back to Nebraska with him.

As a child, Beverly is a pretty girl with an abusive father. He beats her frequently and she worries that it is because he is attracted to her sexually, an impulse that he wishes to sublimate. She is not allowed to be friends with boys, and the other girls in school do not like her because she smokes and uses profanity. She falls in love with Bill Denbrough shortly after meeting the Losers’ Club. She is the best shot with the Bullseye slingshot and gives It a critical wound in the fight at the house on Neibolt Street.

Beverly grows up to become a successful fashion designer, but she marries an abusive man named Tom Rogan, who treats her similarly to the way her father did. When she goes back to Derry, she has to fight Tom off physically in order to escape. Once she is back in Derry, she realizes that she is still in love with Bill. 

Richard “Richie” Tozier is a hyper kid who dreams of being a famous ventriloquist and impersonator. He is a smart aleck whose mouth constantly gets him into trouble. For instance, he is rarely able to be quiet around Henry Bowers, despite knowing that talking back to Henry will result in a beating. As a child, he is one of the two—Mike is the other—who witness the vision of It coming to Earth while in the smoke hole.

Richie grows up to be a famous radio personality and a master impersonator. During the final confrontation with It, he is sent into the void to rescue Bill, and is there at the very end when Bill destroys Its heart.

Eddie is presented as a sickly child, but as the novel progresses, he learns that his mother wants him to think he is sick so that he will not leave her. He never goes anywhere without an asthma aspirator. His fear of illness is so pervasive that the first time he sees It, the monster appears as a rotting leper to him. After Henry Bowers breaks his arm, Eddie understands what his mother has been doing to him when she sends his friends away after they try to visit him in the hospital. During their childhood with It in the sewers, he shoots It in the eye with mist from his aspirator, hurting It.

As an adult, Eddie owns a prestigious limousine company. He marries a woman named Myra who is similar to his mother. When he returns to Derry, he is killed in the final confrontation. 

Stanley is a bookish, Jewish boy who loves birdwatching. He is orderly and rational. After he sees two dead boys in the Standpipe, he describes his reaction as an offense rather than a fear: “It would look like an offense” (437) to the way things were supposed to be if he had seen Jesus walking on water. Its existence is an affront to Stanley’s worldview.

As an adult, he is a successful accountant in Atlanta. When Mike Hanlon calls him, Stanley kills himself by cutting his wrists in the bathtub. The offense of Its continued existence, and the return of his memories, are more than he can bear.

Mike is the final member to join the Losers’ Club. As the only black member of the group, his stories are used to illustrate the presence of racism in Derry. He is a frequent target of Henry Bowers, whose father was racist and who hated Mike’s father. Mike enjoys history and exploration, which foreshadows his desire to remain in Derry after the others leave, in the aftermath of the first fight with It. He then becomes a librarian who also describes himself as a watchman. He stays in Derry out of duty. He is also the only one of the seven who does not lose his memories (until the end, when It has finally been killed). His journal entries and history writing are used to flesh out much of Derry’s background. 

Henry is a one-dimensional character: a bully. The only mitigating factor in his demeanor is his being raised by an abusive, racist father. Henry kills his father and takes the blame for the deaths of all the children in the summer of 1958, after It vanishes. He is transferred to an asylum, Juniper Hill. Pennywise appears to him in the moon and helps him go back to Derry 28 years later in order to help him fight the Losers’ Club for It. Eddie kills Henry in the Derry Town House.