# Arrowsmith — Character guide

> Key figures in Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis.

- [Martin Arrowsmith](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/martin_arrowsmith.md): Martin drifts from medical school to a Minnesota town where he becomes a Pillar of the Community, complete with a Roentgen ray outfit and a seat on the Tozer bank board. He is a religious man without a religion, seeking 
- [Leora Tozer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/leora_tozer.md): Leora marries Martin expecting to follow him out on the road, but settles into a cottage with a nickeled stove and a golden-oak sideboard. She is too lazy to look up a new husband, and she warns him not to expect her to 
- [Max Gottlieb](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/max_gottlieb.md): Gottlieb is the exacting German-Jewish scientist whose pessimistic view of the human intellect Martin absorbs even as he longs for progress and meaning. The death of the Gottlieb-cult leaves Martin unconsciously seeking 
- [Clif Clawson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/clif_clawson.md): Clif drags Martin to parties, calls him Martykins, and warns him that Madeline Fox will set him at tonsil-snatching once she gets her hooks in. He is crude, loyal, and allergic to pretension, and his opposition to Madeli
- [Gustaf Sondelius](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/gustaf_sondelius.md): Sondelius is a rich eccentric with clubs in London, Paris, Washington, and New York, known from Batoum to Bechuanaland for his war on disease. He shouts that tuberculosis, cancer, typhoid, and plague are an invading army
- [Joyce Lanyon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/joyce_lanyon.md): Joyce marries money and expects to shape Martin into a polished man of the world, complete with a chauffeur who touches his hat and a valet who produces shirts automatically. She sees his science as a pity he cannot aban
- [Terry Wickett](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/terry_wickett.md): Terry Wickett is the McGurk Institute's resident iconoclast, a bachelor who gives up everything for his work and detests the politeness that greases institutional careers. He needles Director Holabird and refuses dinner 
- [Angus Duer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/angus_duer.md): From their student days onward, Angus Duer embodies the respectable, calculating path through medicine: impeccable technique, careful alliances, and a career that never risks anything for an idea. His affairs in Chicago 
- [Almus Pickerbaugh](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/almus_pickerbaugh.md): Pickerbaugh is the booming, backslapping health officer of Nautilus, a man who believes in publicity, poetry, and the moral uplift of the American town. He offers Martin a job and a template for a comfortable, useful, th
- [Madeline Fox](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/madeline_fox.md): A poetic, willowy young woman who briefly courts Martin in medical school.
- [A. DeWitt Tubbs](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/a_dewitt_tubbs.md): Tubbs runs the Institute the way a colonel runs a parade, more concerned with dignity, donors, and honorary degrees than with what happens at the bench. He is the bureaucratic weather Martin must navigate once he arrives
- [Rippleton Holabird](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/rippleton_holabird.md): Holabird married money and let his early physiological promise fade into arranging flowers on tables other men hewed, yet he drives elegantly while his colleagues take the subway. He is gracious, envious, and quietly rut
- [Orchid Pickerbaugh](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/orchid_pickerbaugh.md): Almus Pickerbaugh's flirtatious, frivolous daughter.
- [Fatty Pfaff](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/fatty_pfaff.md): A jovial, overweight medical student and friend of Martin's.
- [Ira Hinkley](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/ira_hinkley.md): A sanctimonious medical student who later becomes a preacher.
- [Bert Tozer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/bert_tozer.md): Leora's brother, a farmer in Wheatsylvania.
- [Andrew Jackson Tozer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/andrew_jackson_tozer.md): Leora's stern, religious father, a farmer.
- [R. E. Inchcape Jones](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/inchcape_jones.md): A reserved, efficient British scientist at the McGurk Institute.
- [Doc Vickerson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/doc_vickerson.md): The elderly, alcoholic country doctor who inspires young Martin.
- [Dean Silva](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/dean_silva.md): The kindly dean of the medical school at Mohalis.
- [Irving Watters](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/irving_watters.md): A medical school classmate of Martin's, later a small-town doctor.
- [Pearl Robbins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/pearl_robbins.md): A nurse at the McGurk Institute who assists Martin.
- [Cecil Twyford](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/cecil_twyford.md): A wealthy, eccentric Englishman who funds a plague expedition.
- [Sandy Arrowsmith](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/sandy_arrowsmith.md): Martin and Leora's young son.
- [Ross McGurk](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/ross_mcgurk.md): The wealthy industrialist who funds the McGurk Institute.
- [Clay Tredgold](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/clay_tredgold.md): A wealthy, astronomy-obsessed dilettante and friend of Joyce.
- [Dawson Hunziker](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/dawson_hunziker.md): A farmer and neighbor of the Tozers in Wheatsylvania.
- [Sir Robert Fairlamb](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/sir_robert_fairlamb.md): A British colonial official involved in the plague campaign.
- [Norman Brumfit](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/norman_brumfit.md): A fellow researcher at the McGurk Institute.
- [Rufus Ockford](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/rufus_ockford.md): A young doctor in Nautilus and friend of Martin's.
- [William T. Smith](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/william_t_smith.md): A fellow researcher at the McGurk Institute.
- [Oliver Marchand](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/oliver_marchand.md): A scientist at the McGurk Institute.
- [Roscoe Geake](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/roscoe_geake.md): A pompous scientist at the McGurk Institute.
- [John Arrowsmith](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/john_arrowsmith.md): Martin's father, a farmer in Elk Mills.
- [Mrs. Gottlieb](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/mrs_gottlieb.md): Max Gottlieb's long-suffering wife.
- [Mrs. Fox](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/mrs_fox.md): Madeline Fox's mother.
- [Miss Gwilliam](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/miss_gwilliam.md): A country-club woman who offends Sondelius.
- [Ada Quist](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/miss_ada_quist.md): A nurse in Nautilus.
- [Agnes Ingleblad](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/miss_agnes_ingleblad.md): A young woman in Wheatsylvania.
- [Henry Novak](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/henry_novak.md): A farmer neighbor of the Tozers.
- [Pete Yeska](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/pete_yeska.md): A young man in Wheatsylvania.
- [Ed Blassner](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/ed_blassner.md): A farmer in Wheatsylvania.
- [F. X. Jordan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/f_x_jordan.md): A man in Nautilus.
- [Mayor Pugh](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/mayor_pugh.md): The mayor of Nautilus.
- [Nicholas Yeo](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/dr_yeo.md): A British doctor on the plague expedition.
- [Dr. Bissex](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/dr_bissex.md): A doctor in Nautilus.
- [Dr. Stokes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/dr_stokes.md): A doctor at the McGurk Institute.
- [Dr. Hesselink](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/dr_hesselink.md): A Dutch bacteriologist who visits the McGurk Institute.
- [Paul H. DeKruif](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters/dr_dekruif.md): A scientist mentioned in acknowledgments.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/arrowsmith_se/characters