Sons and Lovers · Characters
Character guide
Key figures in Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence.
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Paul Morel
major
Also known as Paul, Morel, young Mr. Morel, Paul Morel, Mr. Paul Morel
Paul is the second son of the Morel household, a pale, watchful boy who inherits his mother's ambition and his father's coal-dust roots. He loves his mother with an intensity that shadows every other attachment, and the women who enter his life — Miriam, Clara — find themselves competing with a bond they cannot name. His early years of sketching, working, and drifting between Nottingham and the Leivers farm set him on the slow, painful path toward becoming a man who can hold a brush without betraying where he came from.
Gertrude Morel
major
Also known as Mrs. Morel, Morel, Gertrude, Gertrude Morel, Mrs. Morel—Gertrude—was
Mrs. Morel is the moral center of the Morel house on the Bottoms, a small, delicate woman whose will hardens as her husband's drinking and carelessness wear her down. After the birth of her third child she turns from Walter with a tide that 'scarcely rose,' redirecting her hunger for life into William, Annie, Paul, and Arthur. Her possessive tenderness shapes Paul's ambitions and cripples his romances, making her the quiet force against which every other love in the novel must measure itself.
Miriam Leivers
major
Also known as Miriam, Leivers, Miriam Leivers, Miriam Paul
Miriam lives at Willey Farm, a girl in a frayed blue frock and broken boots who seems to Paul like a maiden in bondage, her spirit dreaming in a far-off land. She gives him her whole soul — religious, watchful, self-abnegating — and resents the way his keen eyes see everything about her, from her un-pulled stocking to her inner raptures. Their bond is the novel's first great testing of whether love can survive when one person wants to be worshipped and the other wants to be free.
Clara Dawes
major
Also known as Clara, Clara Dawes, X Clara, Hill Clara
Clara is older than Paul, married to the blacksmith Baxter Dawes but living apart, and she carries her politics and her wounds with a haughty self-possession. She gives Paul a passion that is physical and adult rather than spiritual, yet she cannot stop measuring herself against the husband she has failed to make love her. Her restless need for penance — kneeling to Dawes across an insuperable distance — exposes the limits of what Paul can offer a woman who has already been someone else's.
Walter Morel
supporting
Also known as Walter, Walt, Morel, Walter Morel
Walter Morel is a collier with fine full presence and a laugh that carries through the house, a man who rises at five to toast bacon on a fork and eat in solitary joy before descending the pit. His drinking and his bullying indifference have already begun to shrink him — physically, morally — by the time Paul is born, and his wife's love has ebbed past recall. Yet his tenderness for baby Arthur and his awkward cup of tea for his ailing wife show the man beneath the failure, the father whose warmth Paul will spend a lifetime both craving and refusing.
William Morel
supporting
Also known as William, Willy, William Morel, Billy Pillins
William is the son on whom Gertrude Morel first pinned her hopes, a freckled, active lad with a touch of the Dane about him who races off to the wakes and wins eggcups at the marble stall. He climbs fast — prizes, a London post, a young woman named Lily — and his mother's pride in him is fierce and proprietary. His ambition and his distance from home set the template Paul will both follow and resist, and the family's investment in him makes his absence from the Bottoms a constant pressure on those left behind.
Baxter Dawes
supporting
Also known as Baxter Dawes, Dawes, Baxter, XIII Baxter Dawes
Baxter Dawes works as smith for the factory that employs Paul, making irons for cripple instruments, and he moves through the same working world with a dangerous, self-loathing edge. He shares his wife Clara's white skin and golden coloring, but where she has taken up Women's Rights, he carries a sensual mouth and quick-shifting eyes that seem half hate. His instant hostility toward Paul plants a rivalry that simmers beneath the surface of Paul's relationship with Clara, threatening to erupt.
Annie Morel
supporting
Also known as Annie, Annie Swan
Annie teaches at the Board-school for about four shillings a week, soon to rise to fifteen, and her earnings promise the family a measure of financial peace. She is the one who shyly escorts William's grand betrothed upstairs with a brass candlestick, too timid almost to speak, caught between the family's raw mining life and the polished world her brother aspires to. Her eventual marriage and departure quietly register how the Morel children scatter, leaving Paul more tightly bound to his mother.
Arthur Morel
supporting
Also known as Arthur, Love Arthur, the Family Arthur Morel, Meantime Arthur
Arthur grows up in the thick of the battle between Morel and his children, loathing his father's dirty, disgusting ways and the stubborn independence behind them. When he wins a scholarship to the Grammar School in Nottingham, his mother sends him to live with one of her sisters in town, coming home only at weekends. His removal eases the household's daily warfare but also shows how Mrs. Morel's ambitions for her sons pull them away from the pit and toward a life she can only watch from a distance.
Edgar Leivers
supporting
Also known as Eddie Dakin, Edgar, Edgar the eldest
Edgar belongs to the Leivers family at Willey Farm, where the brothers sit in shirtsleeves guffawing at Paul's mocking takeoffs and the whole household loves a joke more than anything. He is part of the rural, religious atmosphere that surrounds Miriam and that Paul both enters and resists, a world of milking, daffodils, and Primitive Methodist services. His steady, unremarkable presence helps define the family texture against which Miriam's fervent, self-sacrificing nature and Paul's restless artistic eye stand out.
Mrs. Leivers
minor
Also known as Mrs. Leivers, the Leivers
Miriam's mother, a kind farm woman.
Mr. Leivers
minor
Also known as Mr. Leivers
Miriam's father, a farmer.
Alfy
minor
Also known as Alfy Ant'ny 'e, Alfy
A young boy from the mining community.
Beatrice Wyld
minor
Also known as Beatrice, Beatrice Wyld
A flirtatious young woman who briefly attracts Paul.
Fanny
minor
Also known as the hunchback Fanny, Fanny, Poor Fanny
A hunchbacked factory worker and friend of Paul.
Mrs. Dawes
minor
Also known as Mrs. Dawes, Dawes
Baxter Dawes' mother, who appears briefly.
Mr. Pappleworth
minor
Also known as Pappleworth, Mr. Pappleworth
Paul's supervisor at the surgical appliance factory.
Mrs. Radford
minor
Also known as Mrs. Radford
Clara's mother, with whom Clara lives.
Minnie
minor
Also known as Polly, Minnie, Presently Minnie
A servant girl in the Morel household.
Leonard
minor
Also known as Leonard, Len
A young man who courts Annie Morel.
Mr. Jordan
minor
Also known as Mr. Jordan, Mr. Jordan common, Jordan, Presently Mr. Jordan
Owner of the factory where Paul works.
Jerry Purdy
minor
Also known as Jerry Purdy, Jerry
A friend of Walter Morel from the mines.
Barker
minor
Also known as Barker
A miner and neighbor of the Morels.
Louisa Lily Denys Western
minor
Also known as Louisa Lily Denys, Louisa Lily Denys Western, Lily
William Morel's fiancée from London.
Mr. Heaton
minor
Also known as Mr. Heaton, So Mr. Heaton
A clergyman who visits the Morel family.
Thomas Jordan
minor
Also known as Thomas Jordan, Thomas
Mr. Jordan's full name, factory owner.
Anthony
minor
Also known as Anthony, Mrs. Anthony
A neighbor of the Morels.
Miss Western
minor
Also known as Miss Western
Lily's sister, who visits with William.
Emmie Limb
minor
Also known as Emmie Limb, Emma, Limb
A factory girl who works with Paul.
Mrs. Kirk
minor
Also known as Mrs. Kirk
A neighbor who helps during family crises.
Agatha
minor
Also known as Aggie, Agatha
Annie Morel's friend.
Margaret Bonford
minor
Also known as Margaret Bonford
A friend of Clara's from the women's movement.
Bill Naylor
minor
Also known as Bill Naylor, Bill
A miner and friend of Arthur Morel.
Mr. Braithwaite
minor
Also known as Mr. Braithwaite
A local tradesman.
Connie
minor
Also known as Connie
A young woman in Paul's social circle.
Miss Limb
minor
Also known as Miss Limb
Emmie Limb's relative, also a factory worker.
Mrs. Bower
minor
Also known as Mrs. Bower
A midwife who attends Mrs. Morel.
Mr. Winterbottom
minor
Also known as Mr. Winterbottom, glossy Mr. Winterbottom
A well-dressed man from the village.
Mrs. Dakin
minor
Also known as Mrs. Dakin
Edgar Leivers' mother.
Maurice
minor
Also known as Maurice
A young man from the village.
Susan
minor
Also known as Susan
A servant in the Morel household.
Dr. Ansell
minor
Also known as Dr. Ansell
The family doctor for the Morels.
Taff
minor
Also known as Taff
A miner and friend of Walter Morel.
George Coppard
minor
Also known as George Coppard
Gertrude Morel's father.
Pussy
minor
Also known as Pussy
A cat owned by the Morel family.
Missis Arabella
minor
Also known as Missis, Arabella, Missis Arabella
A woman from the village.
Mrs. Inger
minor
Also known as Mrs. Inger
A neighbor of the Morels.
Gyp
minor
Also known as Gyp
A dog owned by the Leivers family.
Newton
minor
Also known as Newton
A horse on the Leivers farm.
Dr. Jameson
minor
Also known as Dr. Jameson
A doctor who treats William Morel.
Gertrude Coppard
minor
Also known as Gertrude Coppard, Gertrude
Gertrude Morel's maiden name, mentioned in backstory.
Alfred Charlesworth
minor
Also known as Alfred, Alfred Charlesworth
A man from the village.
Chubby
minor
Also known as Chubby
A child in the Morel neighborhood.
Geoffrey
minor
Also known as Geoffrey
A young man from the village.
Jim Inger
minor
Also known as Jim Inger, Jimmy
A boy from the mining community.
Orion
minor
Also known as Orion
A dog owned by the Morels.
Louie Travers
minor
Also known as Louie, Louie Travers
A young woman from the village.
Mr. Wesson
minor
Also known as Mr. Wesson, Wesson
A local tradesman.
Postle
minor
Also known as Postle
A miner and friend of the Morels.
John Field
minor
Also known as John Field
A man from the village.
Jim Crow
minor
Also known as Jim, Jim Crow
A miner and friend of Walter Morel.
Willam
minor
Also known as Willam
A misspelling of William, possibly a child.
Miss Jordan
minor
Also known as Miss Jordan
Mr. Jordan's daughter.
Jack Bredon
minor
Also known as Jack Bredon
A young man from the village.
Little
minor
Also known as Little
A child in the Morel neighborhood.
Penelope
minor
Also known as Penelope
A name mentioned in passing.
Jack Pilkington
minor
Also known as Jack Pilkington, Jack
A young man from the village.
Nurse
minor
Also known as Nurse
A nurse who attends the Morel family.
